Erriyon Knighton, second in the men’s 200 meters at last year’s Budapest world championships, had not run since March 30. Odd for an Olympic year. On Wednesday, it was made clear why: he had been provisionally suspended April 12 after testing positive for the steroid trenbolone.
Erriyon Knighton at the 2023 world championships // Getty images
Cattle ranchers use the stuff to make animals bigger, and on Wednesday an arbitrator cleared Knighton of doping, ruling he had ingested contaminated meat. Knighton is now free to run in the 200 at the U.S. Trials in Eugene, the heats beginning next Thursday.
At first blush, it is tempting to lump Knighton in with a bunch of other American track and field athletes who also got off, and, if you were the Chinese authorities, or for that matter, following the situation from anywhere, looking at what’s what in the United States and saying, WTF – is there one set of rules for 🇺🇸 and another set of rules for everyone else?
Consider, among others:
Triple jumper and three-time Olympic medalist Will Claye, contaminated meat, 2018 – no suspension.
800-meter standout Ajee Wilson, contaminated meat, 2017 – no suspension.
800-meter standout Brenda Martinez, contaminated medicine, 2020 – no suspension.
The truth is the Knighton case has so much more to do with rules and, as things go, with the Chinese swim drama than one might imagine. And with the hearing scheduled next Tuesday at the U.S. House of Representatives, at which U.S. Anti-Doping Agency chief Travis Tygart is expected to testify – that is, bash the World Anti-Doping Agency.
All of this is easily understood – what we are here for – if one understands the rules, the politics of what’s what and can divine the meaning of the very first bullet point, a seemingly obscure bit of legalese, in the Knighton award.
So, let’s get to it.
Big picture, WADA is funded 50-50 by the IOC and by governments from around the world. WADA’s 2024 budget is $52.4 million. The IOC contributes $24.9 million of that. Governments pay a matching $24.9 million. An entity from Montreal, where WADA is based, contributes a remaining $2.4 million.
The U.S. government is due to contribute, to round up, $3.625 million.
That means the U.S. contribution amounts to 6.9% of the entire WADA budget.
Mind you, that’s not USADA contributing that money – that’s the U.S government, and it’s crystal clear USADA is not what’s called a “state actor,” an arm of the federal government.
All the same, Tygart has a keen media sense, and he has long sought – relying on pressure from the press and, when useful, the federal government – to exert disproportionate American influence on WADA. For 6.9%, not even his money, it’s not unreasonable to consider he seemingly wants to run the entire show.
Whether this is constructive for U.S. athletes is of considerable debate.
Within the United States, he assuredly can find a receptive audience. Elsewhere – not so much.
To consider the elsewhere, it’s not difficult to see how he can be perceived as the stereotypical American. That is, we do everything better than everyone else and so we should run it.
There’s also this:
A basic premise of lawyering is that one has an ethical duty to be a “zealous advocate” when representing a client.
Compliment here for Tygart: he is all of that, and more.
It’s the more part, though, that is perhaps problematic.
He understands, and keenly, that Americans have for generations been conditioned to have a need for villains from outside our borders.
Especially if they are Communists.
For decades, the Soviets filled this role. See Rocky IV.
This cultural conditioning is why the biggest story in American sports history is the U.S. hockey team’s 1980 victory in Lake Placid.
And why, in part, the Russian doping scandal resonates so deeply with so many.
With this in mind, amid the ascendance of a 21st century political and military power to rival the United States, marked in the sports scene by the 2008 Summer and 2022 Winter Games – the Chinese swim drama.
To make a very complicated story as easily understood as possible, the matter revolves around whether the purported contamination in a hotel kitchen becomes a “no fault” case or a “no violation” case.
In theory, the WADA Code is quite clear that a “no fault” case has to be “published” – that is, made public.
To follow along:
Article 9 says there’s a violation.
Article 14 says you have to disclose.
Article 7.4 says you have to provisionally suspend … and then unsuspend.
This is the thrust of what Tygart has been arguing for weeks. The rules are the rules.
If you say it’s contamination in the hotel kitchen, then it’s a “no fault” case but it’s not a “no violation” case.
And, again, a “no fault” case has to be – published.
Was what happened a big deal? You can make a credible argument: probably not. Except that the Beijing 2022 Winter Games were coming up. And China, dating to the 1990s, before the Sydney Games, has been notorious for doping. Let’s be clear – not state-sponsored, like Russia. They simply did not have control over a Wild West-like situation.
Now to WADA’s position.
In assessing the WADA take, one should keep in mind that Ross Wenzel, now its general counsel, was the lead drafter of a technical document explaining how to implement the Code; in essence, he is a hard-ass prosecutor and hardly given to weak interpretations of the rules.
The Chinese Anti-Doping Agency did not call what happened a “no fault” case. Instead, it called it a “no violation” case – based on facts which, it said, pointed to contamination in the hotel kitchen.
No violation = “no basis in the Code to publish any details about the cases,” per WADA.
This is the crux of the ongoing current conflict between USADA/Tygart and WADA. Rules.
Could WADA have appealed? It said it followed “the advice of specialized external lawyers.” An independent review is now ongoing.
What WADA has said, meantime, is that – and in every way this is true – “it would have been a technical appeal” to convert a “no violation” case into one of “no fault.”
Could it have done so before the Tokyo Games? In 23 cases? A ruling probably would not have come before 2022. But because WADA would have accepted that any of the 23 would have had “no fault,” they would still have been permitted to compete in Tokyo, it said.
Also, WADA has repeatedly said that never in its 25-year history has it appealed — not once — to covert a “no violation” to a “no fault.” Nor has any other anti-doping organization, it said.
This brings us to the Knighton case.
And why lawyers for WADA and the Athletics Integrity Unit were — in an unusual sequence of events — also sitting in, as observers, on the hearing.
Too, why USADA wasted no time, none, publishing the ruling – even though all we have, at this stage, is a cryptic two-page document.
Would it have published this document so quickly if it was not in a fight with WADA? It’s easy to say probably not. But, rules: look, USADA brought the case. Did CHINADA?
The facts of the case:
Knighton’s positive came from an out-of-competition test taken March 26.
It’s USADA’s policy not – repeat, not – to announce provisional suspensions. Everyone in the track world knew Knighton wasn’t running. But no one knew why.
Knighton’s lawyer, Howard Jacobs, would argue that the trenbolone could be traced to a meal containing oxtail at a Tampa-area restaurant a few days beforehand.
To USADA’s credit, Jacobs said, the agency went to the restaurant and got a sample of the meat.
What Jacobs could then argue is the source of the trenbolone essentially had been established. Then the case turned over whether the level of contamination was enough to cause a positive test.
Now to the legalese in that first bullet point: “Claimant’s requested relief is DENIED (the reasons will follow in due course) …
In this construction, USADA is the “claimant,” Knighton the “respondent,” and, Jacobs said, what USADA was “claiming,” that is, asking for under the Code, was the straightforward sanction anyone gets for liability, four years.
So, in fairly and credibly applying the rules, after asking for four years in the sort of matter in which other high-profile American athletes got nothing, here was Tygart to the press:
“We did what the rules require us to do in all positive cases. We can take comfort that justice was served and transparency as required by the rules was achieved.”
For emphasis, to make clear the rule in the Knighton case, per the USADA release: it is a “no fault” matter.
More rules: the three cases at the top of this story didn’t go to a hearing. The Knighton case did. That’s a difference.
Jacobs said, “I can tell you I didn’t come away from that hearing wanting to eat more American beef.”