AP: Lifetime bans sought: USADA notifies Montgomery, Collins of plans for doping punishment. It’s the first time the agency has filed charges against an athlete who has not failed or refused to take a drug test. USADA has built its cases on evidence from the federal probe of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative.
The sports bosses, stooges in the War on (Some) Drugs, have created a grossly unfair process to “clean up” Olympic competition. The athletes — innocent or not — can’t possibly win, which appears to be the idea.
The “anti-doping” agency doesn’t have to obey the rules of law or evidence. All this hypocritical body has to do is make vague charges and defy the people charged to prove a negative.
I don’t care if athletes take performance-enhancing drugs, mind you. As far as I’m concerned what adults put into their bodies is their own business.
But even if the sports authorities should have the right to ban people they call abusers, they should have to prove their case beyond any reasonable doubt. The process they’ve created is a caricature, a kangaroo court of the worst kind.
Posted by: adam on June 24, 2004 11:22 AM
What Dan’s missing because he’s uninformed is the fact that Tim Montgomery, the most high profile and i’m sure inspiration behind this piece (since Montgomery complained of facing a ban without ever having tested positive), is that Montgomery admitted to a grand jury of taking steroids and human growth hormone, even though he never tested positive. Maybe Dan will say he was perjuring himself and could never have taken those drugs
Posted by: adam on June 24, 2004 11:22 AM
What Dan’s missing because he’s uninformed is the fact that Tim Montgomery, the most high profile and i’m sure inspiration behind this piece (since Montgomery complained of facing a ban without ever having tested positive), is that Montgomery admitted to a grand jury of taking steroids and human growth hormone, even though he never tested positive. Maybe Dan will say he was perjuring himself and could never have taken those drugs
Posted by: Joe Buck on June 24, 2004 11:49 AM
If Tim Montgomery has confessed to a violation, then banning him is proper. If others are suspected of violations but contest those violations, they should be presumed innocent; certainly the tests can be made more rigorous to prevent any future cheating.
Posted by: Tom J on June 24, 2004 12:09 PM
I don’t think that proof beyond a reasonable doubt is a relaistic standard – these are all private organizations after all.
But, these sporting authorities are in effect employers (or the agents of employers), and so should be governed by the same rules and regulations. There should be a “reasonableness” standard, there should be due process (including appeals), and there should be proportional reaction to the offense.
Lots of hypocrisy on all sides of this issue . . .
Posted by: Dan Gillmor on June 24, 2004 12:50 PM
A newspaper report quoting what he may have said to a grand jury isn’t enough evidence for me.
I doubt they’re going to be able to police this stuff in the future, when it’ll be possible to create designer drugs that are fundamentally undetectable. Anyway, the entire sports world is awash in hypocrisy.
Posted by: Wez on June 24, 2004 08:47 PM
Oh there’s plenty of hypocrisy about – I’ve never heard of a British athlete yet that was really guilty, or of a foriegn one that was innocent.
But what adult puts into their bodies is not their own business if they wan’t to compete in international competetitions.
All games have rules. Athletes and their trainers know them inside out. If an athlete tests positive the onus is rightly on him to prove why he should not be banned.
Posted by: ijsbrand on June 24, 2004 08:27 AM
Actually, doping cases work from the same basic assumption as drugs cases do under American law; everyone’s guilty until proven innocent. Though normally it’s enough to pee on command and let a lab test the results for residues of banned substances.
That the end results of these test are ignored this time is not really a change of the basic rules set out.