Welcome to 2008! The year in which John Fahey, former Australian finance minister, becomes the new President of the World Anti-Doping Agency. Mr Fahey will take over the expense account, the office and the direction of an organization formerly led by Canadian attorney and former Olympian, Richard Pound, Esq.
Parsing the departure of Mr Pound, Ww simply points to past quotes for which his excretionly famous wit has brought him instant recognition and respect:
... by a quote–sucking audience comprised of mostly toad (or sheeplike: But not all!) sports journalists whose main fields of expertise (US football, or soccer–football, or tennis or what–have–you) is not cycling (admittedly the Ground Zero of all sports–doping news until the Marion JONES confession, or the long–overdue Mitchell report).
Parsing the departure of Mr Pound, Ww simply points to past quotes for which his excretionly famous wit has brought him instant recognition and respect:
... by a quote–sucking audience comprised of mostly toad (or sheeplike: But not all!) sports journalists whose main fields of expertise (US football, or soccer–football, or tennis or what–have–you) is not cycling (admittedly the Ground Zero of all sports–doping news until the Marion JONES confession, or the long–overdue Mitchell report).
(John Fahey at WADA Conference, Madrid
Acceptance of presidency Press Conference:
Photo © ZENmud productions, Nov 2007)
WADAwatch does want to compliment Dick Pound upon his departure, for certainly having opened the eyes of a now–watchful (smile) world, through his elaborated innuendoes, his extravagantly premature statements, and his boisterous endorsement for some of the world's worst examples of 'a better tomorrow through chemistry'.
Take that last part again... 'a better tomorrow through chemistry':
... the wording of this phrase could favour either dopers, and their scientist/ medical/ procurement allies, orTake that last part again... 'a better tomorrow through chemistry':
... the anti–doping specialists, located:
- in the 33 laboratories which now carry the WADA seal of Accreditation,
- in the real world of hundreds or thousands of laboratories that exist, fully capable to perform high–standard, sport–doping tests, or
- in the advent of real–life, harmoniously standardized laboratories,
of a future, reputable WADA configuration.
Mr Fahey has a gold–medal opportunity, to stimulate implementation of the proper range of priorities in the post–Poundian WADA era; priorities that established WADA's mission from the very first page of the WADA CODE.
[NB: The underlined words reflect approved changes to be integrated into the "2007 CODE" adopted in Madrid, scheduled for publication in January 2008 (not online as of 2 January 2008) and to take effect in January of 2009]:
[NB: The underlined words reflect approved changes to be integrated into the "2007 CODE" adopted in Madrid, scheduled for publication in January 2008 (not online as of 2 January 2008) and to take effect in January of 2009]:
The purposes of the World Anti-Doping Code and the World Anti-Doping Program which supports it are:
To protect the Athletes' fundamental right to participate in doping-free sport and thus promote health, fairness and equality for Athletes worldwide, and
To ensure harmonized, coordinated and effective anti-doping programs at the international and national level with regard to detection, deterrence and prevention of doping.
(Ww: emphasis added)
Mr Fahey walks into an unpleasant nest not of his making, but WADAwatch expresses confidence early in the new era, that it is PRECISELY a 'non–sports, non–doping' agent that can transform WADA, and transcend its young and brash reputation.
Mr Fahey may also want to recall the Fundamental Rationale established and retained in the WADA CODE:
FUNDAMENTAL RATIONALE (p. 3) ... the essence of Olympism; it is how we play true. ... the following values: [.....] Respect for rules and laws. ...
With such clear mandates, as provided above, WADAwatch hopes that John Fahey will address is his first priorities, the following list of items:
- Institute a more efficient balance in the WADA budget between WADA travel costs and its combined expenditures to laboratories (standardization and harmonization, testing, and research).
The WADA 2006 audit reveals it spent $3.1 million on travel and accommodation costs in 2006, up nearly 40 per cent over 2005 costs.
WADA had as costs related to 'Testing Fees' and 'Accreditation fees' the sum of $2.395 million (accreditation costs only accounting for 9.2 per cent of this sum!).
A related WADA 'cost' was in the provision of $4.016 million for research grants (with no breakdown in this Audit Financial Statement, the only breakdown is provided at this link, to the PowerPoint presentation given by the soon–to–be elected VP of WADA, Mr Arne Ljungqvist, as to the percentage of that cash which went to its accredited laboratories. NB: Of 364 projects to which WADA contributed funding between 2001 and 2006, from 33 nations, some 159 separate research teams worked , of which 50 were accredited labs and the 109 others were outside the 'anti-doping domain' (presumptively from credible research (University? Governmental Agency, or Hospital?) facilities):
It seems out of balance, that an organization that needs to have universally adapted regulations on sports doping testing parameters is not spending more money on accreditation procedures, and implementation of standardization and harmonization of testing criteria, and or processes. - Find a solution to the simple "yes" or "no" response to 'Whether WADA should increase or desist from testing for non-sports related drug use?' (the marijuana question).
This question is fraught with peril, for an organization without a mandate to overtake Interpol or any other governmental structure for domestic repression of the use of so-called 'social drugs'. Reading a future transcript of the 2007 World Conference on Doping in Sport (not yet published as a document, but you can winnow through the WADA Conference on-line archives here) may reveal more than the simple statements officially archived at the link provided. - Determine as soon as possible the extent to which the 'Victor Conté' and 'Marion Jones' stories have offered sufficient evidence and effect of massive testing fraud (by cheating Athletes AND by unsubstantiated testing reliability), and how to extract WADA's past reliance on testing as its primary methodology for reducing doping in sport.
Almost any reader of WADAwatch has to be ready to presume that, if Marion Jones can 'pass' (Or 'evade') nearly 200 separate doping analyses, and if Vic Conté has something to 'sing' about, there is a long distance between what the world imagines about the credibility of the WADA accredited laboratory network via the sporting press, and what unharmonious reality actually exists, based on these confessions. Together, these latter events or personalities are more likely to be evoked when future discussions of 'sports doping laboratories' are pronounced. - Determine how WADA will, in your term(s) of presidency, protect the rights of investigated Athletes, from: a) unsupportable 'scientific evidence' claims; b) non-standardized testing parameters; c) premature publication of A Sample testing results by 'respected publications' that are to date not yet punished for blatant WADA CODE et al violations; d) by non-standardized laboratories.
When the welcome-aboard parties are over, Mr Fahey, the list a-d above are the pinnacle of your journey, from a world that sees more clearly now that WADA's accreditation process allows the best and the worst labs to act on the world's stage as equals; how WADA has 'rewarded' reporters who have leaked A Testing results with juicy Poundian quotes that all but bury the words 'due process' in a scathing trail of unsubstantiated rumours, stamped with an 'aura of authority' due to the phrase 'WADA-accredited'.
Understandably, Mr Fahey, you have a lot of work in advance of this year's Tour de France, and the Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.
IN both of those cited events, there are many concerns ("suspicions" being too harsh a word in this context) as to the objective nature(s) of the testing authorities and their ability to find illegal substances and NOT use their official power to distort the doping testing-related events to benefit their own nation's participants.
In this 2007 WADAwatch column...
Wall Street Journal 'DOPING 101'
... Former UCLA laboratory director Don Catlin may regret this perhaps inadvertent unveiling of the 'efficacity' of his WADA laboratory colleagues:
"...are an effort to avoid athletes being falsely punished [through false lab work for whatever generative reason].
"I'd like to think the odds of that happening are low -- it's a disaster when it does," says Don Catlin. "How often it does happen I can't tell you, but nobody's going to raise the flag and say "I had a problem with a test in my lab". I have my ear to the ground and I hear of such things, but it's hard to document."
Maybe someone could fund Mr Catlin for the price of a digital recording device: it would be much more reliable in court, than testimony presented on the grounds that one's ear was to the ground??
Bring SCIENCE back to WADA, and to its ACCREDITED LABORATORIES.
WELCOME ALL, to the JOHN FAHEY era
.......@.............WADAwatch
© 2008 ZENmud productions
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