This error does not affect the totality of the post Paths of Glori (-ous French Failure) concerning the AFLD and its unseemly reliance on inapplicable French law.
The error(s) originate from questions posed by WADAwatch, concerning the use of the word 'Testing' in WADA CODE 15.4, and the inherent difference of the use of that word, within WADAworld, as compared to the rest of the world. Our written article carried a tone that implied that WADA didn't even understand its own International Standard for Testing.
WADAwatch apologizes for this misconstrued analytical viewpoint.
In fact, the International Standard for Testing does regulate all aspects of Sample procurement: identification of Testing 'victims', collection, protection and transport of Samples. Usage of 'Testing' in the pertinent WADA CODE document appears to be, most often, properly limited to these aspects.
The term 'Doping Control' embodies the entire sequence that a lay person may describe as 'Testing', including 'laboratory analysis'.
Given that clarification, there remains the perplexing use of the term 'Testing' in Article 15.4 of the CODE. It seems without question that the intent of Article 15.4 (“Mutual Recognition”) is designed to eliminate precisely the procedures that Mr Landis faced in the second AFLD prosecution. As noted by WADAwatch, Article 15.4 would serve its constituencies better, if the words 'Doping Control' replaced the word 'Testing'.
The anti–doping world may also benefit greatly, if WADA chose to define 'Laboratory analysis', in either the CODE or the ISL.
In the ISL, definitions specific to itself include 'Laboratory Internal Chain of Custody', Laboratory Documentation Packages, and this definition of Laboratory:
“An accredited laboratory applying test methods and processes to provide evidentiary data for the detection and, if applicable, quantification of a Threshold Substance on the Prohibited List in urine and other biological Samples.”
Should one raise the red flag again? There's that pesky word 'test'! Which admittedly is not 'Testing', (although this subject is beginning to test our patience...). A tangled web to unweave, is not aided when further research pulls up the definition of 'Testing Authority' (which is “... responsible for Sample testing... and/or management of the test result.”
Can WADA project coherence, and display confidence to an awakening world that is witness to the focus at WADA on 'busting Athletes', while its inconsistent CODE–work causes that world to focus on WADA, in and of itself?
Remember the words of the Court of Arbitration for Sport:
"Athletes and officials should not be confronted with a thicket of mutually qualifying or even contradictory rules that can be understood only on the basis of the de facto practice over the course of many years by a small group of insiders."
(CAS: in the decision USA Shooting & Quigley v. UIT, 1995 (CAS 94/129))
Hopefully the world will not have to wait four years, for WADA to address these errors in drafting. When is a Test a TEST, and when is a Test a Doping Control?
WADAwatch shares its errors when noted; bigger players in the global fight against doping in sport are invited to do so, as well.
The opinions expressed by WADAwatch are strictly formed with the purpose of inciting WADA to adhere to its Fundamental Rationale, achieve its goals and fulfil the aspirations of its Signatories, in achieving the highest possible level of objective, neutral science in sport-doping control.
Watching WADA
............@............WADAwatch
© 2008 ZENmud productions
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