I totally misread that this morning on my phone. I read it like Spanish AD wanted the bags destroyed. An insane ruling. More needs to be made of this than is at present, he says shouting into the wind.
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I love how all these super famous sports people can walk into a pharmacy and buy these vitamin supplements that contain these banned substances.
Surely the pharmacists need to be questioned as they are a medical practitioner who need to advise their customers of using such medication and supplements.
I mean you can't by solpadeine without getting the Inquisition. It's almost as if there's no pharmacist at all involved...
In regards to the Aussie Rules drug scandal, the guy who prescribed the drugs (which are anti-obesity type drugs) claimed he had a letter from WADA saying the drugs were not banned. Essendon, the club in question, accepted that and let this bloke Dank inject the players. Now WADA are saying that ignorance is no defence and any player involved could face severe bans. (The club have admitted they now believe the drugs given were in fact banned substances.)
While I appreciate zero tolerance to drugs is right, in this case unless the players could analyse the drugs themselves, how the hell were they to know what exactly they were taking? They took what they were told were vitamin supplements in good faith, and it will be interesting to see how all this pans out.
A fascinating read on suspected doping cases in football down through the decades: http://www.4dfoot.com/2013/02/09/dop...s-of-evidence/
Tyson Gay and a bunch of Jamaicans on the way. Yohan Blake looking dodgy pulling out of Moscow with "injury" and Chris Froome zooming up the mountains. Interesting times.
On a similar note, over the weekend I was reading this timeline of Rafael Nadal's history of injury.
In fairness to Blake, he's been out with a hamsting injury for a while now (April I think). It's certainly possible that that's a co-incidence
There was a load of Turkish athletes caught recently too.
GAS6 seems to be the new drug the rumours are swirling around. There's a bit on it here although the necessity to use google translate makes it difficult to follow: http://translate.google.com/translat...cule-des-dopes
I read last month he might miss out but that he'd likely make it. He has form though (2009 banning) and it probably is just bad timing.
CD, Nadal is playing in one of the worst regulated sports going and there is almost no effort (concerted) to make a change. I am fully convinced that to break the top 50 you have to take something. People get caught, slapped on the wrist and play on. But since Nadal is so high profile and has won so much, to out him would devastate the sport. For any star we'll have to wait until they're not worth as much.
The numbers of OOC blood tests being done in tennis is shockingly low. It's fractions of what goes on in cycling, which is still far from clean. Given how tennis is edging closer to becoming a pure endurance sport, there has to be some reason they're not being more stringent.
I was at a sports industry networking event at the KIA Oval recently. I met a guy from UK Anti-Doping and he said the ruling was entirely correct when I suggested it smacked of a cover-up. From a legal perspective the judge had absolutely no option under Spanish law but to order the evidence to be destroyed. I don't know exactly what the ins and outs were but I suppose it adds another perspective.
it boiled down to the case being a medical hearing, not a sporting one. The judge had to destroy the medical records (blood bags) rather than destroy evidence in a sporting context.
The case was against Dr Fuentes not treating his patients with their best medical interests in mind, rather than against him helping sports stars cheat.
The ruling in Fuentes and the actions after were lawful but not ethical, or rather not moral. It would be wrong to say the Spanish court were covering up, they did what they could to uncover the culture in the country which allowed all sorts to go on and had to stick to the letter of the law. But in Spain, Italy and Germany there are so many loopholes for doping to take place.
CD is hitting the nail on the head, tennis is rotten. Viktor Troiki just got banned for 18months, there are so many inconsistencies in the case. He gave a urine sample, the next day (having been given leave by the tester) gave a blood test, and it turned out that both tests were negative. Yet he got banned on a technicality.
In tennis there are silent bans, which the ITF try to deny but they're complicit in it, and rotten academies, yet nobody wants to open the door to what could pour out.
Viktor Troicki was just handed an 18 month ban from tennis last week for refusing to produce a sample for testing apparently. It follows Cillic getting a 3 month ban during Wimbledon.
There normally isn't very many guys done for doping in Tennis so it's a bit mad seeing two in quick succession, both pleading innocence obviously.
There are lots done AV, just that it normally is in house, from what I've seen. With the amount of activity around the world (just at a professional level) there is little the ITF can do when they don't fund their anti-doping system.
Some really funny posters here in Moscow, they have billboards of Tyson Gay and Usain Bolt with the heading - face-to-face. Nobody seems bothered anymore.
The Cillic ban has certainly been kept very quiet anyway, It took over a month before word got out.
I seen Andy Murray making some bitter tweets about cheats a few weeks ago. It's hard to know with them lads, tennis is an incredibly tough sport at the top level.Just going through some of the notable Tennis player bans in the last 10 years or so. No really big names banned for performance enhancers, bar Cillic (his is a bit dubious) and now Troicki). It's usually #50-100 ranked guys.
Wayne Odesnik is the most cut and dry case, 2 year ban for human growth hormones in 2010, he was the only one I knew about aside from Cillic and Troicki..
Richard Gasquet - Few months out for testing positive with Cocaine in his system.
Martina Hingis - Cocaine too!
Lourdes Domingues Lino - Cocaine.. what kind of partys do these people go to!!
Alex Bogmolov Jr. 1.5 month ban for filling incorrect paperwork on the inhaler he was taking..
Fillipo Volandri - 3 month ban for ''asthma medication''.
Karol Beck in 2005, 2 year ban for clenbeturol whatever that is..
Ivo Minar had a 2 year ban reduced to 8 months after the ITF accepted he had taken a banned substance by accident..
A 16 year old Bulgarian wta player got banned this month too apparently, for proper performance enhancing drugs, no cocaine at all!
Macy, you're right, and it is a complete cover up, and it's kind of like the usual bit of picking on the least defensible part of sports (in society it's usually white male 16-70), athletics also gets a belting but nobody is surprised. I firmly believe it's all about where the money goes. As I stand by, my old company and my new one will not allow a player go to training camps in Spain (or academies), Italy, France and Germany - in that order. Also some of the increased performances of average players always catches my eye, especially when you meet them and suddenly they're muscled up and quite different to before. Last year (I think it was at the US Open) I heard Serena Williams complaining about testing and how players shouldn't have to be "on demand", this is the same person who wasn't tested for 18 months and who has had 2 in the past 3 years. It's a joke and the authorities and sponsors don't want any flak hitting them.
AV, great list, and just something that has the fishiest smell (not from you of course :-) ) cocaine! Now, I've been around many tennis players and cocaine is usually not the drug of choice, especially for men. However....cocaine or substances with such properties are often used as masking agents. Some years ago a young Bulgarian (Karatantcheva) was done for using ped's, she first claimed it was because she was pregnant (had an abortion) and thus the nandrolone found could be explained. However it was thrown out and the pregnancy excuse denied. She's since sold herself to Kazakhstan (along with lots of other players) and is playing the circuit. But there was something completely covered up.
The girl was 15 at the time of the test, and supposedly she'd "conceived" at 14, her coach then was well known to have been involved in her and is still on the circuit working with young women. No sanction was taken against him, no questions asked, nothing. So in short, tennis has a heck of a lot of things to clean up but still doesn't do it.