Are WADA fit to 'police' doping in sport

[Benotti69]

I mean why believe WADA, Reedie is vice president of the IOC FFS, IOC want records broken, they want faster, higher, longer etc.

Not many want the Olympics anymore. Too much corruption and the demands of the IOC are extortionate.

 

[DirtyWorks]

Re:

Everyone is good at identifying the "problem" in this case WADA. Can I suggest we start suggesting solutions? What is your solution Benotti or do you just like propagating a sense of hopelessness?

"The problem" is not WADA. It's the sports federations. You probably misunderstand, like many, that WADA has no power to do anything.

WADA is not perfect as-is. There's a very long way to go cleaning up the federations before thinking about reworking WADA.

Do I need to remind everyone that Sepp Blatter was a senior WADA member until 2016? http://www.espnfc.us/fifa-world-cup/story/2651315/ioc-drops-sepp-blatter-from-world-anti-doping-agency-board

It's not WADA, it's the federations.

 

[Cookster15]

Re: Re:

Everyone is good at identifying the "problem" in this case WADA. Can I suggest we start suggesting solutions? What is your solution Benotti or do you just like propagating a sense of hopelessness?

I have posted this before.

WADA to be truly independent, not a PR agency. Craig Reedie is a member of IOC, vice pres, what a massive conflict of interest.

How about whistleblowers being held in high esteem and rewarded instead of ignored or tolerated at best.

How about Sporting federations being dragged out of Switzerland and into the real world where they are answerable to real laws.

Sport is big business and should be accountable in the same manner. Sporting fraud, cheating or doping should be a crime punishable financially and a criminal record.

Prison sentences for coaches, managers, director sportifs, doctors and others that enable the doping.

Lifetime bans.

The big problem is that athletes dont fear getting caught. The system is stacked in the dopers favour. Need to break the culture.

There are plenty of ways to make an athlete or other think twice about doping.

What would you do?

What would I do? I don't know that's why I asked. Every time I drop in I read this pessimism and sense of hopelessness so I leave. I'm not here frequently enough to catch every post. Thanks for copying your post above, it does contain some suggestions and nice to know you have a constructive side.

Ultimately reducing doping comes back to the desire by the sports authorities to really fix the problem. Seems spectacle and avoiding bad publicity takes precedence over ensuring fair competition.

 

[Pantani_lives]

Without WADA and USADA people like Lance Armstrong and Marion Jones would probably never have been caught. I think the problem is more with the sports federations. UCI doesn't want the reputation of cycling to be harmed, national federations don't want to ban their top star.

 

[Cookster15]

Re: Re:

Everyone is good at identifying the "problem" in this case WADA. Can I suggest we start suggesting solutions? What is your solution Benotti or do you just like propagating a sense of hopelessness?

"The problem" is not WADA. It's the sports federations. You probably misunderstand, like many, that WADA has no power to do anything.

WADA is not perfect as-is. There's a very long way to go cleaning up the federations before thinking about reworking WADA.

Do I need to remind everyone that Sepp Blatter was a senior WADA member until 2016? http://www.espnfc.us/fifa-world-cup/story/2651315/ioc-drops-sepp-blatter-from-world-anti-doping-agency-board

It's not WADA, it's the federations.

Okay now we are getting somewhere. If its the Federations of course that will be very difficult. We saw an example with the Spanish obfuscation over Valverde's case - charged in 2006 but never served his ban until 2010. We saw it with Russian athletes. Nationalism drives politics and politics and money drives Federations.

One idea is the IOC. Yes I know they are dodgy but if the IOC can ever be cleaned up that puts pressure on the Federations does it not? Otherwise there would never be such a thing as state sponsored doping.

So reading here I am being led to think WADA is fit to police doping in sport but only when they are empowered to do so. Today they are somewhat a toothless tiger. How do we empower WADA by making Federations accountable? Houston we have a problem.

 

[Benotti69]

Ewan MacKenna ‏@EwanMacKenna 4 hours ago Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Chatting to Floyd Landis earlier about whistle-blowing and he nailed it.

"Wada don't want to stop doping, they're a PR strategy by the IOC."

Nailed it.

 

[BullsFan22]

Re:

Ewan MacKenna ‏@EwanMacKenna 4 hours ago Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Chatting to Floyd Landis earlier about whistle-blowing and he nailed it.

"Wada don't want to stop doping, they're a PR strategy by the IOC."

Nailed it.

So who DOES want to stop doping?

 

[Benotti69]

Re: Re:

Ewan MacKenna ‏@EwanMacKenna 4 hours ago Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Chatting to Floyd Landis earlier about whistle-blowing and he nailed it.

"Wada don't want to stop doping, they're a PR strategy by the IOC."

Nailed it.

So who DOES want to stop doping?

I would hazard a guess the majority of cyclists would. They take the risks. But as they are near the bottom of the hierarchy ladder they have little power.

 

[buckle]

Re: Re:

Ewan MacKenna ‏@EwanMacKenna 4 hours ago Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Chatting to Floyd Landis earlier about whistle-blowing and he nailed it.

"Wada don't want to stop doping, they're a PR strategy by the IOC."

Nailed it.

So who DOES want to stop doping?

Nobody. The war on doping has failed and someone like Brailsford has worked this out. If SKY are busted then the sport is basically finished and everybody knows it. Ergo they will not be busted. The Armstrong scam was based on the same logic. SKY hold a powerful hand.

 

[veganrob]

When Armstrong admitted to doping, UCI and WADA did not have a concern in the world. That was ancient history and they had their new clean team in Sky to hold up as the paragons of virtue. WADA and UCI will do anything to keep them in the game. It will take a massive *** up for them to get busted.

 

[TheSpud]

When Armstrong admitted to doping, UCI and WADA did not have a concern in the world. That was ancient history and they had their new clean team in Sky to hold up as the paragons of virtue. WADA and UCI will do anything to keep them in the game. It will take a massive **** up for them to get busted.

It would also need a massive conspiracy all the way from the top down to the lab testers. There are only a handful of labs testing - if they were getting AAFs popping up a lot but no-one getting banned I think someone would talk. I do agree though that if Sky were to be busted for cheating it would be bad for the sport, just like it would be in any other sport if the #1 was caught up in a scandal.

 

[veganrob]

When Armstrong admitted to doping, UCI and WADA did not have a concern in the world. That was ancient history and they had their new clean team in Sky to hold up as the paragons of virtue. WADA and UCI will do anything to keep them in the game. It will take a massive **** up for them to get busted.

It would also need a massive conspiracy all the way from the top down to the lab testers. There are only a handful of labs testing - if they were getting AAFs popping up a lot but no-one getting banned I think someone would talk. I do agree though that if Sky were to be busted for cheating it would be bad for the sport, just like it would be in any other sport if the #1 was caught up in a scandal.

But the lab testers supposedly don't know who they are testing. Its just a number. So maybe the conspiracy doesn't have to be all that massive as you suggest.
Still pretty big though. And they have proven to not be trustworthy.

 

[TheSpud]

When Armstrong admitted to doping, UCI and WADA did not have a concern in the world. That was ancient history and they had their new clean team in Sky to hold up as the paragons of virtue. WADA and UCI will do anything to keep them in the game. It will take a massive **** up for them to get busted.

It would also need a massive conspiracy all the way from the top down to the lab testers. There are only a handful of labs testing - if they were getting AAFs popping up a lot but no-one getting banned I think someone would talk. I do agree though that if Sky were to be busted for cheating it would be bad for the sport, just like it would be in any other sport if the #1 was caught up in a scandal.

But the lab testers supposedly don't know who they are testing. Its just a number. So maybe the conspiracy doesn't have to be all that massive as you suggest.
Still pretty big though. And they have proven to not be trustworthy.

Agree on the lab testers - but if, say, a team was protected and was doping with impunity there could be positives coming up all the time. True the testers wouldn't know the person / team but they'd surely see a big percentage of failures followed up by very few bans?

 

[Nick C.]

But who would the lab testers tell? Is it possible that there are confidentiality protocols. It isn't health records, but it isn't far removed. At any rate that whistleblower may find themselves out of a job and perhaps a career.

 

[Benotti69]

When Armstrong admitted to doping, UCI and WADA did not have a concern in the world. That was ancient history and they had their new clean team in Sky to hold up as the paragons of virtue. WADA and UCI will do anything to keep them in the game. It will take a massive **** up for them to get busted.

It would also need a massive conspiracy all the way from the top down to the lab testers. There are only a handful of labs testing - if they were getting AAFs popping up a lot but no-one getting banned I think someone would talk. I do agree though that if Sky were to be busted for cheating it would be bad for the sport, just like it would be in any other sport if the #1 was caught up in a scandal.

Why use the word conspiracy? Did the Russians not enable top down avoidance of positives? There were few positives in the 90s till Wily Voet was stopped by Border Police.

Cookson declared the TdF positive free, I mean 180 riders over 3 weeks and no positives? Wow!!!!!

Where do all the tests go from the TdF? Luasanne. A lab run by Martial Saugy, the guy who was willing to tell Armstrong/Bruyneel all about how they test athletes samples.

Who arranged Saugy to meet Armstrong and Bruyneel? UCI president!

Who is current UCI president? A British guy, who was deep in TeamGB and part of the Sky set up, Brian Cookson, whose son worked for Sky. Who is head of WADA, Sir Craig Reedie.

No need to use the word conspiracy when you start to join dots.

 

[thehog]

When Armstrong admitted to doping, UCI and WADA did not have a concern in the world. That was ancient history and they had their new clean team in Sky to hold up as the paragons of virtue. WADA and UCI will do anything to keep them in the game. It will take a massive **** up for them to get busted.

It would also need a massive conspiracy all the way from the top down to the lab testers. There are only a handful of labs testing - if they were getting AAFs popping up a lot but no-one getting banned I think someone would talk. I do agree though that if Sky were to be busted for cheating it would be bad for the sport, just like it would be in any other sport if the #1 was caught up in a scandal.

Why use the word conspiracy? Did the Russians not enable top down avoidance of positives? There were few positives in the 90s till Wily Voet was stopped by Border Police.

Cookson declared the TdF positive free, I mean 180 riders over 3 weeks and no positives? Wow!!!!!

Where do all the tests go from the TdF? Luasanne. A lab run by Martial Saugy, the guy who was willing to tell Armstrong/Bruyneel all about how they test athletes samples.

Who arranged Saugy to meet Armstrong and Bruyneel? UCI president!

Who is current UCI president? A British guy, who was deep in TeamGB and part of the Sky set up, Brian Cookson, whose son worked for Sky. Who is head of WADA, Sir Craig Reedie.

No need to use the word conspiracy when you start to join dots.

Probably worth noting the Lausanne lab also "lost" Russian samples. No doubt they have managed to lose other samples also, from other countries.

 

[TheSpud]

When Armstrong admitted to doping, UCI and WADA did not have a concern in the world. That was ancient history and they had their new clean team in Sky to hold up as the paragons of virtue. WADA and UCI will do anything to keep them in the game. It will take a massive **** up for them to get busted.

It would also need a massive conspiracy all the way from the top down to the lab testers. There are only a handful of labs testing - if they were getting AAFs popping up a lot but no-one getting banned I think someone would talk. I do agree though that if Sky were to be busted for cheating it would be bad for the sport, just like it would be in any other sport if the #1 was caught up in a scandal.

Why use the word conspiracy? Did the Russians not enable top down avoidance of positives? There were few positives in the 90s till Wily Voet was stopped by Border Police.

Cookson declared the TdF positive free, I mean 180 riders over 3 weeks and no positives? Wow!!!!!

Where do all the tests go from the TdF? Luasanne. A lab run by Martial Saugy, the guy who was willing to tell Armstrong/Bruyneel all about how they test athletes samples.

Who arranged Saugy to meet Armstrong and Bruyneel? UCI president!

Who is current UCI president? A British guy, who was deep in TeamGB and part of the Sky set up, Brian Cookson, whose son worked for Sky. Who is head of WADA, Sir Craig Reedie.

No need to use the word conspiracy when you start to join dots.

1. The Russuan situation is very different to what I'm talking about - that was a concerted state sponsored in country program aimed at ensuring Russians didn't glow. Cyclists will get tested across a number of labs throughout the year (not just Lausanne).
2. The UCI president who arranged the Saugy meeting wasn't the current one, in fact he wasn't even the previous one, but the one before - some 15 years ago.
3. It was well known Oli Cookson worked at Sky, Brian never denied it afaik - given the size of the gene pool in Cycling it's no surprise.
4. Similarly it's no surprise the UCI president comes from one of the Feds that governs one of the countries. Like I said - the gene pool is small.
5. Not sure what you are trying to imply with Reedie - that somehow Sky get better treatment because he is British? Wow that really is a generalistic position to take - does that mean the head of Wada should come from a country that has no actively participating sports men and women? What would you suggest - Antartica????

 

[TheSpud]

To add

I'm not saying everything is squeaky clean but some of the theories that come out on this foru really do make me laugh ...

 

[Benotti69]

1. The Russuan situation is very different to what I'm talking about - that was a concerted state sponsored in country program aimed at ensuring Russians didn't glow. Cyclists will get tested across a number of labs throughout the year (not just Lausanne).

How do we know other countries are different? Chinese are not state sponsored? Plenty of UK athletes get government money.

2. The UCI president who arranged the Saugy meeting wasn't the current one, in fact he wasn't even the previous one, but the one before - some 15 years ago.

Cookson has proven himself to be worse than his predecessors.

3. It was well known Oli Cookson worked at Sky, Brian never denied it afaik - given the size of the gene pool in Cycling it's no surprise.

Be hard to hide as cycling is a small gene pool.

4. Similarly it's no surprise the UCI president comes from one of the Feds that governs one of the countries. Like I said - the gene pool is small.

And coming from a small gene pool, independence is hard to achieve.

5. Not sure what you are trying to imply with Reedie - that somehow Sky get better treatment because he is British? Wow that really is a generalistic position to take - does that mean the head of Wada should come from a country that has no actively participating sports men and women? What would you suggest - Antartica????

Reedie is hardly taking a hard line with Seb Coe. As Landis said, WADA are a pr strategy for the IOC. Cycling is an IOC sport and Cookson is using it to get on the IOC gravy train.

 

[buckle]

The suspicion is that the preferred option nowadays is a "quiet word" in the ear of an athlete who is being too obvious. In some cases this can even lead to a bust (as was the case with Sharapova) but for the most part the leading protagonists are simply too big to fail. Busting a few lower down the food chain is for spread sheet purposes only. We should not be surprised at this level of corruption or double standards. Sports are in competition with each other for TV air time which is finite in the wealthier countries. No doping news is good news. Why should cycling cede TV money to tiddlywinks?

 

[TheSpud]

1. The Russuan situation is very different to what I'm talking about - that was a concerted state sponsored in country program aimed at ensuring Russians didn't glow. Cyclists will get tested across a number of labs throughout the year (not just Lausanne).

How do we know other countries are different? Chinese are not state sponsored? Plenty of UK athletes get government money.

2. The UCI president who arranged the Saugy meeting wasn't the current one, in fact he wasn't even the previous one, but the one before - some 15 years ago.

Cookson has proven himself to be worse than his predecessors.

3. It was well known Oli Cookson worked at Sky, Brian never denied it afaik - given the size of the gene pool in Cycling it's no surprise.

Be hard to hide as cycling is a small gene pool.

4. Similarly it's no surprise the UCI president comes from one of the Feds that governs one of the countries. Like I said - the gene pool is small.

And coming from a small gene pool, independence is hard to achieve.

5. Not sure what you are trying to imply with Reedie - that somehow Sky get better treatment because he is British? Wow that really is a generalistic position to take - does that mean the head of Wada should come from a country that has no actively participating sports men and women? What would you suggest - Antartica????

Reedie is hardly taking a hard line with Seb Coe. As Landis said, WADA are a pr strategy for the IOC. Cycling is an IOC sport and Cookson is using it to get on the IOC gravy train.

For #1 thst isn't the situation we're (or at least I was) talking about. The point I was making was that there would have to be one hell of a conspiracy across lots of labs in different countries to protect a cycling team (Sky or otherwise). The RUSADA example protected their athletes etc. while they were in Russia - very different.

#2 is your opinion - I haven't studied his performance nearly as much as you.

#3 and #4 agree on the small pool, but it doesn't necessarily mean corruption.

#5 yes it would be far better if Wada was totally independent and the heads weren't IOC members, but that's been the case since day dot I believe.

 

[Benotti69]

1. The Russuan situation is very different to what I'm talking about - that was a concerted state sponsored in country program aimed at ensuring Russians didn't glow. Cyclists will get tested across a number of labs throughout the year (not just Lausanne).

How do we know other countries are different? Chinese are not state sponsored? Plenty of UK athletes get government money.

2. The UCI president who arranged the Saugy meeting wasn't the current one, in fact he wasn't even the previous one, but the one before - some 15 years ago.

Cookson has proven himself to be worse than his predecessors.

3. It was well known Oli Cookson worked at Sky, Brian never denied it afaik - given the size of the gene pool in Cycling it's no surprise.

Be hard to hide as cycling is a small gene pool.

4. Similarly it's no surprise the UCI president comes from one of the Feds that governs one of the countries. Like I said - the gene pool is small.

And coming from a small gene pool, independence is hard to achieve.

5. Not sure what you are trying to imply with Reedie - that somehow Sky get better treatment because he is British? Wow that really is a generalistic position to take - does that mean the head of Wada should come from a country that has no actively participating sports men and women? What would you suggest - Antartica????

Reedie is hardly taking a hard line with Seb Coe. As Landis said, WADA are a pr strategy for the IOC. Cycling is an IOC sport and Cookson is using it to get on the IOC gravy train.

For #1 thst isn't the situation we're (or at least I was) talking about. The point I was making was that there would have to be one hell of a conspiracy across lots of labs in different countries to protect a cycling team (Sky or otherwise). The RUSADA example protected their athletes etc. while they were in Russia - very different.

#2 is your opinion - I haven't studied his performance nearly as much as you.

#3 and #4 agree on the small pool, but it doesn't necessarily mean corruption.

#5 yes it would be far better if Wada was totally independent and the heads weren't IOC members, but that's been the case since day dot I believe.

Well UKAD appears to protect its athletes as has been proven by the Dr Bonar case. Turn a blind eye.

The UCI was corrupt before Cookson took over. Please show us where he has cleaned that up! All he appears to have done is reduce positives without increasing testing or testing methodology and riders and performing to similar levels before he took over!

So Reedie being part of the IOC gang points to corruption or not? I think it does and WADA is the pr for the IOC.

I dont hear WADA getting upset that whislteblowers are being denied Rio places!!! That screams volumes about where WADA are coming from.

 

[Benotti69]

Almost every major drug bust from BALCO through Armstrong and now Russia has been from whistleblowers or police forces, not testing.

WADA not doing flip all in reality.

 

[BullsFan22]

Re:

Almost every major drug bust from BALCO through Armstrong and now Russia has been from whistleblowers or police forces, not testing.

WADA not doing flip all in reality.

WADA is really there as a nice, fake gesture from the IOC and the national organizations that supposedly 'follow' WADA's 'rules.'

I have my own thoughts about whistleblowers, mostly Rodchenkov and Seppelt. I have more respect for the Stepanovs, but Rodchenkov has resided in the US since 2011 and Seppelt is financed by ARD which is in turn financed by the German government. Seppelt has actually been sued, successfully, in Germany regarding previous doping stories, or attempts are doping stories. He fails though, to touch upon serious questions regarding his own country's doping issue, from the 1954 World Cup, to state-sponsored doping in West Germany. Heck, he hasn't talked much about East Germany! His goal was to have the Russians entirely banned from Rio and for FIFA to take away the 2018 from the Russians. I am guessing that was one of ARD/WDR's next steps. They've completely stopped talking about how the 2006 was in all likelihood won by bribes as well. Beckenbauer was questioned, but briefly and that seemed to be that.

 

[Benotti69]

WADA cancels Rio press conference amid ongoing Russian doping crisis

http://sport.bt.com/more-sport-hub/more-sport/wada-cancels-rio-press-conference-amid-ongoing-russian-doping-crisis-S11364076797337#/.V59RVgDO9Fc.twitter

The World Anti-Doping Agency has cancelled its scheduled Rio 2016 pre-Games press conference to avoid it being overshadowed by the ongoing Russian doping crisis.

WADA a puppet for IOC.