WADA

How to understand the Chinese swim drama in light of the Erriyon Knighton 'no fault' case

How to understand the Chinese swim drama in light of the Erriyon Knighton 'no fault' case

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.

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?

Rough justice 4 teen girls: Kamila, u get 4 yrs 4 1st offense. Adults? Whut?

Rough justice 4 teen girls: Kamila, u get 4 yrs 4 1st offense. Adults? Whut?

From the get-go, there was never any question there was a substance in the Russian skater Kamila Valieva’s 15-year-old body that shouldn’t have been there.

The issues all along were: 1/ where did that substance, the banned substance trimetazidine, or TMZ, come from, 2/ and what to do about it, since she was 15, and in theory someone who is 15 ought not be treated the same under the rules, anyone’s rules, as someone who is, say, 32. 

Put aside everything else – and there’s so much connected to the Valieva matter, which threatened to all but eclipse everything that wasn’t Valieva at the Beijing 2022 Winter Games – and those two keys make up the core of Monday’s Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport judgment, which said those rules mean Valieva deserves to be treated like a grown-up. 

So, it said, she got what she deserves, the usual: a four-year ban.

For, let’s note, a first offense.

Sun Yang gets busted. Sure. But eight years?

Sun Yang gets busted. Sure. But eight years?

Sun Yang, the Chinese swim star and three-time Olympic gold medalist, earned himself an eight-year ban Friday in a case in which the verdict itself was always a no-brainer.

Why?

You don’t get to take the law into your hands, figuratively and literally.

Or, put another way, even in the Far East, it’s not the Old West out there.

Or, if you prefer, vigilante justice is no justice at all.

Christian Coleman, and recasting the media narrative

Christian Coleman, and recasting the media narrative

DOHA, Qatar — The day after 23-year-old Christian Coleman became The Man, king of the 100 meters, the biggest deal in track and field, he was still the same guy he had been, always was, a grounded and sensible young man from a great American family.

As he made the rounds Sunday at the Team USA hotel, this was the Coleman ‘entourage’: his mom, Daphne, who holds a Ph.D. in education and is an instructional coach in the Atlanta schools; his dad, Seth, who is the media relations manager for the Atlanta public school system; an agent; and a manager. 

Where was the wacky scene so long associated with Usain Bolt? Where was the commotion? Where was — all of that?

People, don’t misunderstand. 

Christian Coleman is not Bolt, and the time has come for everyone to understand that is a good thing. 

The time is also now for everyone to understand that Coleman has been nothing but a good dude, and that the media narrative that has enveloped him to a significant degree over the past several weeks — totally unfairly — needs to be recast, particularly because Coleman’s victory Saturday at these IAAF 2019 championships arguably makes him the face of track and field heading into the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics.

Less rhetoric. More rational, calm process. For everyone's sake

Less rhetoric. More rational, calm process. For everyone's sake

In Russian doping saga news: the 50-kilometer cross-country skier Alexander Legkov gets to keep his Sochi 2014 gold medal and the Russian Anti-Doping Agency almost certainly will not be declared non-compliant after World Anti-Doping Agency investigators finally retrieved computer data from the Moscow lab.

When the history of this Russian saga is wrapped, it really ought to be weighed against the sage counsel of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the U.S. Supreme Court justice, who in her 2016 autobiography wrote, “Reacting in anger or annoyance will not advance anyone’s ability to persuade.”

There has been so much — entirely too much — rhetoric in, around, enveloping this Russian saga, a great deal of it from people who know, or ought to know, the value of process but who have turned time and again to inflammatory bombast, pomposity and hyperbole in seeking to advance politically charged positions.

Not to mention just yelling at each other. Or someone.

As the Legkov case and the retrieval of the lab data prove, process — way more than rhetoric — matters.

Process often isn’t fun, or sexy, or thrilling, particularly in our world now, when it can seem so much more entertaining, or cavalier, or satisfying to the echo chamber to zip off a blasting tweet.

But process matters, and a lot. It matters to work through it. Heads-up: that’s what this column is about.

WADA reinstates Russia: the time is now for solution

WADA reinstates Russia: the time is now for solution

For all the noise in some quarters of the press and from some athletes’ groups, the World Anti-Doping Agency on Thursday did the right thing and reinstated Russia. 

Yes, the right thing.

This drama has been going on long enough. At some point there needs to be closure. That time is now. 

Of course, the Olympics are rooted in a set of ideals. But the Olympic movement operates in the real world. The real world is about more than just morality. It’s also about all the things that make our world go around, especially where sport and and government intersect, a myriad of interests that include politics, diplomacy, business and hard cash, and to pretend otherwise is silly.

Waiting for CAS, and the crucible of cross-examination

Waiting for CAS, and the crucible of cross-examination

In his under-appreciated gem of a 1982 song, “Highway Patrolman,” Bruce Springsteen offers this memorable line: “Man turns his back on his family, he just ain’t no good.”

It’s worth considering these words anew as we wait for the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport to release its “reasoned decision” in the cases of 28 Russians cleared of doping at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, because that tribunal is the first to get to weigh fully the cross-examination of star witness Grigory Rodchenkov.

Rodchenkov is also one of the stars of Icarus, recently awarded an Academy Award. And the star of much of what has been reported for more than two years now in the New York Times about the Russians.

IOC assembly as taxi confidential

IOC assembly as taxi confidential

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — Pretty much every culture has a saying that goes something like this: what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. 

There’s a corollary that goes like this, courtesy of the late and very excellent American comedian George Carlin: let’s not have a double standard — one standard will do just fine.

So it was especially rich to listen to the International Olympic Committee, at its 132nd session, its annual congress, carry on at length Tuesday over the Russian doping saga, in particular the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport’s decision last week to clear 28 Russians of doping at the Sochi 2014 Games and free 11 other Russians of life bans. 

The outrage! The frustration! The rancor! The conflict! And it was all on television, or Twitter, or Periscope, for everyone. Such theater!

Frosty in PyeongChang

Frosty in PyeongChang

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — Ryan Bailey is an American sprinter. 

He won a silver medal in the 4x100 relay at the London 2012 Summer Games. But he had to give it back because of teammate Tyson Gay’s doping conviction. Like many sprinters, Bailey then gave bobsled a go. Last January, Bailey tested positive himself for a stimulant in a case involving a dietary supplement called Weapon X. Based on a "light degree of fault,” a three-member American Arbitration Assn. panel gave him a mere six months off.

The United States Anti-Doping Agency appealed to the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport. In December, in a decision little noticed except in track and field and bobsled circles, in the arcane world of sports lawyering and of course in Ryan Bailey’s entourage, CAS slapped Bailey with two years — a signal to one and all not in the United States that anti-doping jurisprudence in the United States might well be considered, well, weak.

What in the world does this have to do with the CAS decision last Thursday to clear 28 Russians of doping at the Sochi 2014 Olympics? The prospect of an appeal from that decision to the Swiss Federal Tribunal? Tensions between the World Anti-Doping Agency, CAS and the International Olympic Committee? 

Pretty much nothing, and at the same time — it's a riff on everything.

 

So you're telling me there's a chance?

So you're telling me there's a chance?

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — Do you escalate a fight if by so doing you run the very real risk of losing a much-bigger battle?

Metaphorically speaking, this is the dilemma confronting the International Olympic Committee in the wake of a Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling earlier this week that cleared 28 Russians of doping allegations at the Sochi 2014 Games and released 11 others from life bans. The 28 are eligible for PyeongChang; the other 11, no.

That ruling immediately presented the IOC with two separate but related decision trees. A dazzling number of complexities are at issue. Let’s cut through the clutter:

1. Is the IOC under any obligation to invite the 28 to the 2018 Winter Games?

2. Should the IOC appeal the CAS ruling to the Swiss Federal Tribunal?