Dear readers,
[This post suffered from 'floating ghosts/mouse/c-n-paste syndrome (perhaps the author should be drug-tested for eggnog abuse?); our apologies]
So ends 2009, and we wish you and yours a Happy New Year. To the staff of WADA, we wish better laboratory analyses standardization and Signatory compliance; to the Athletes whose lives lie in the competence and ethics of those analyses, we wish you all a clean, no doping, no false POSITIVES future (and stop kissing girls whose mouths reek of cocaine...!)
We end this year with a look-back at the most interesting WADAwatch posts, to show a linear path that was travelled, mostly due to the shenanigans of the World's Only Publicityhound Lab Director... (think of it this way: if he didn't DO IT, I wouldn't be writing about it... right?)
So here's your somewhat-lengthy Year in Review (we hope to provide Show Two of STRAIGHT DOPE before the snow melts next week!).
Thanks for loving, thanks for hating WADAwatch; similar to the above: if 'they' didn't do it, we wouldn't be writing about it!)
On 1 January 2009, the revised WADA Code (“WADC” or “Code”) entered into force, as did its International Standards for Laboratories and IST for Testing. As the year winds down, we review the major events that dominated the 2009 world anti-doping scene... From our quiet shoreline on Lac Léman, Switzerland, WADAwatch opened its year on 11 February, by indicating that the French weekly paper Le Canard Enchainé (an eight–page paper with no ads) had discussed 'des problêmes' at another French paper, L'Equipe...
11 February: WADA... journalistic coup?
... Amaury Editions, who own the Tour de France event through their filiale ASO, had evidently cracked down on publishing more 'doping stories'. Although that sea change should have resulted from ASO-L'Equipe finally comprehending, after many years of WADC violations, that its status as a Major Event Organizer made it subject to Code requirements on confidentiality, (never WADA's priority as it strove to 'clean up Sport'), le Canard suggested that ASO did so to help win the TV rights for French coverage of the 2014 Sotchi Winter Olympics; this was a 'sésamé' (French for 'award') it gained through apparent connections and with important input from IOC Member and ASO executive Jean-Claude Killy. What became crystal clear, is that Equipe reporter Damien Ressiot lost his cherished role as the 'voice' for premature release of A Samples results.
With hindsight, we learnt that other journalists were more than ready to replace Ressiot...
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April began the revivification of Pierre Bordry v Lance Armstrong, in Bordry's Springtime Assault, that accused Armstrong evading an anti–doping control while training in France: conflicting stories emerged as to whether the French DCO 'allowed' this, or not...
10 April: the AFLD--termath... on Lance's test
... Ww followed up with a prediction: the case against Lance would not be strong, due to a parallel legal situation that arose within a recent CAS decision regarding Italian football player Cherubin...
14 April: Is WADA 'aiding and abetting' Lance?
After several weeks, while Plucky Pierre Bordry was interviewed sans cesse about hair sampling results or his belief that Lance's antics constituted an out-and-out refusal to submit to a doping control, he announced that the French powers-that-be (the French Court for Arbitration in Sport) had dismissed his 'golden opportunity' to 'take Lance down'...
28 April: AFLD-ermath redux: Lance unleashed....
An interesting side-note to retain: the NY Times reported that French DCOs are 'sworn under oath' by French Magistrates to do their jobs properly...
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The spring warmed up, as did the French press, agitated to the boiling point by M. Bordry. When Bordry's attempt to 'prove' Lance was 'dirty' failed, he reverted to attacking his other favourite US cyclist, and seeking new headlines, by re–floating a submarine story: the French judicial case against the Landis entourage for the infamous 'Hacking Case' from November 2006...
5 June: Le Pierre Ironie: on French Hacking case v Baker
Ww extensively reported on this development, pointing out the perplexities of the French 'theory of the case', that a Doctor based in San Diego could get access to the same 'band' of French info–tech hackers whose company enabled major French corporate clients (the biggest State industries in France) to hack into computer systems in at least two other high profile cases, against Greenpeace and an attorney representing small-holding shareholders in litigious cases (the firm: Kargus Consulting, went 'bankrupt' within 18 months of its debut). Did it only seem 'preposterous' to WADAwatch, and no others, that a Consulting firm of loyal, former French agents would work against the gouvernement that was its only major client, on behalf of a 'dirty American doper' ?
8 June: Holes in the AFLD-zone...
The 'evidence' against Landis' entourage was much less obvious, in our opinion, items seemed to link this 'case' to a staged event (aka a French 'conspiracy'): which could have been for the benefit of either AFLD OR Landis, even without those principles' foreknowledge. Ww believes it more probable that this was done to further taint worldwide public opinion against Floyd Landis (thus from or benefiting AFLD). The French police seem notably more capable of analyzing (at great distance) the implicated computer(s) in California than those in France at the nexus of the original hacking events.
11 June: Surveying les French surveillance societés...
(This subject remains outstanding, as the WADAwatch year winds down...)
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The French media campaign against Armstrong grew virulent, nearly rabid, as the Tour approached; WADAwatch continued its 'public service' by translating and dissecting another outrageously–loose article presented by French paper Le Canard Enchainé...
29 June: Deux Canards Laqués
(Our title cross–references the paper and the popular Chinese plate)
... Their article stoked the flames of fierce French cycling chauvinism by relying 100pc (impurely) on the original 'L'Equipe' 2005 article Les Mensonges d'Armstrong (“Armstrong's lies”), and embellishing it. Gullible readers who'd actually believed the bullçhit spooned out by journalist Jerome Canard (whose paper remains, nonetheless, a preferred source for French governmental activities), including Armstrong's culpability in 2005 for a multitude of illegal products, would probably also believe a declaration that the seven-time Tour winner was an alien from another Galaxy. Moral of the story: facts don't matter when French papers want to increase sales and the mob's temperature, by bashing American cyclists...
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On the eve of the 2009 Tour, WADAwatch published one of our columns en français. Ww informed the French public (and Minister Bachelot) about the Tom Boonen legal decision (a 'Finding' of cocaine traces made Tom persona non grata by ASO, which was protested by Tom's team and attorney). That decision, promptly issued by the French Arbitration Court for Sport (not CAS), supported Boonen's participation. ASO capitulated, letting him take the depart: the French Court said Boonen could race because la France (and ASO) could not discriminate against him.
Rosalyne Bachelot's contemporaneous welcome to Lance Armstrong reminded him that he would be (we couldn't make this up!) particularly, particularly, particularly surveyed. To our way of thinking, this was tantamount to a declaration, in terms of Tour drug–testing, that France, Bachelot, Bordry and his AFLD had every intention of discriminating against Armstrong, which the Court had just said was impermissible against Boonen.
3 July: L'Homme qui entrait de (la douche) froid(e)...
(“The Man Who Entered from the Cold Shower”: en français)
NB: they did discriminate: Armstrong was tested 13 times during the 2009 Tour, and had been tested 35 times between October 2008 and the final day of the 2009 Tour: clean every time.
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As the Tour entered its midpoint, on Bastille Day (as Americans call the French Fête Nationale), Le Canard Enchainé interrupted their streak of prejudicial articles against Armstrong, or the Tour, by offering a reminder that Nicolas Sarkozy is an admirer of the Tour and Armstrong... (NB: that could, however, make him an 'enemy' for the growing number (now more than 60pc) of Français who don't appreciate la Sarkozysme...)
14 July: Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose...
... Living near the French border, this author was actually impressed by Sarkozy's comments, shared in a full Cabinet meeting; they should be memorized by sports journalists around the world:
“Stop stigmatizing the Tour de France, the world's largest bicycling race!” he said to his ministers. “It is a victim of doping and not a guilty (Ed: party). And while not ignoring the past errors, one must recognize the efforts agreed to by the racers in the matter of controls.”
Unfortunately the Director of the AFLD didn't receive a copy of those meeting minutes...
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Before the Tour ended, WADA offered yet another reason to write about 'judicial interpretation'...
20 July: WADA ya get? Another Eight years and...
... On the 40th anniversary of Humanity's first Steps on the Moon, WADAwatch wrote about the USADA case against Tyler Hamilton, which had terminated with a negotiated 'eight-year suspension' (a de facto 'lifetime ban' that nailed Tyler's racing shoes to the storage–closet wall for eight years: he'll turn 46 when the suspension ends). That result evidently made WADA's legal badgers rabidly virulent (again): they filed a CAS appeal, seeking 'banned for Life' status, rather than eight years, against the American cyclist. Ww roundly objected to WADA's 'theory of the case', and predicted WADA would lose, way in advance of any scheduled hearing, while admonishing it in as strong terms as we've ever used, for two reasons.
First, since WADA itself had long complained about the 'high cost of litigation' (especially due to the budget-breaking Landis Inquisition of 2006-2008), we queried why they found it necessary to go against this negotiated decision, which reduced litigation costs and terminated a rider's career? Secondly, by filing their appeal, WADA was openly stating it needed 'judicial interpretation' of its own 2006-2007 WADC redrafting exercise (which did little more than create more work opportunities for the 'small group of insiders', the specialist–attorneys who benefit greatly from imprecise (Lax? Negligent?) Code modifications), that had produced the 'disciplinary matrix' displaying an 'eight years to life' suspension criteria for 'second offenses'. When WADA announced it had withdrawn its appeal, it claimed its decision was taken in light of 'new information received since it filed its appeal' (openly denied by Hamilton's attorney). Because they didn't admit their error (in filing the appeal), WADAwatch wondered if WADA was:
“Janus, Gemini or Jekyll and Hyde?”...
Presenting a chosen set of permutations for an organism possessing two minds...
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The 2009 Tour de France ended beautifully (our hero, Andy Schleck, daring all he could against a powerful team), and just as marmots end spring hibernations, so to did Greg Lemond, whose voice arose like a Cuckoo–Clockwork Orange. WADAwatch disputed his 'rationale' again, for staining the sport (which made him famous) with claims of 'obvious doping'...
30 July: What WADA needs isn't... Greg LeMond
... Lemond seems to presume upon the gullibility of anyone who would listen (would mentors be Plucky Pierre Bordry and former WADA president Dick Pound?), that he won cleanly his three Tours, yet all subsequent Tour champions were (and are) 'obviously doped'. His insinuations against Armstrong and Contador were weakened by statements from cancer victim Laurent Fignon, who discussed his own use of amphetamines and other steroids during the years Lemond was riding, which tainted the light shining on America's first Tour winner: a clean rider obviously cannot beat a doped champion, right? His angelic position seems ever more fragile...
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In August, we wrote ('for the umpteenth time', as Mom used to say), about a 'landmark' CAS case, USA Shooting & Quigley v UIT; whose classic legal ruling was obscured by the Anti–Doping Jihad against Floyd Landis (WADAwatch also disclosed that the attorney who lost that case, is none other than Richard Young: Denver attorney, lead drafter of the WADA Code, prosecutor of Floyd Landis and revolving–door Arbitration Panellist for CAS).
4 August: WADA waste... WADA lost cause
The case that proved Quigley survived Landis was yet another Italian football case (CAS 2008/A/1557: WADA v. CONI, FIGC, Mannini & Possanzini). This particular 2009 CAS decision seems to have revived and reinforced the Quigley Rule... by retaining one simple premise: Regulations from Agencies must be clearly published, clearly communicated, and consistently implemented to the Athletes whose livelihoods depend on them... Administrative law is designed to make processing of such claims, or actions easily resolved and more or less predictable. Such objective rules (as CAS implored in the 1995 Quigley case) comprise the philosophic opposite of 'judicial interpretation'. This latter philosophy sustains a legal theory stating “we shan't be bothered to write clear rules; if there's a problem, a judge can tell us what we really mean (aka what Athletes should live by)”. All that after spending two years redrafting bullçhit and calling it brilliance...
An aspect of this case, even more interesting for Athletes, was its nearly-unique status: CAS actually re-opened the case, after it had rendered a decision favouring the WADA position. CAS reversed its First Award, on the basis of some new evidence. The new Ww focus on WADA's insufficient efforts to achieve Signatory compliance really took off with this column.
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WADAwatch constructed a theory amplifying how WADA actions indicated an institutional preference to actagainst 'Guilty Athletes', rather than working with recalcitrant Signatories, to achieve compliance, due to a certain line of WADA appeals throughout these last six years. By preferring to employ attorneys to appeal Athletes' cases to CAS, WADA willfully diminishes a focus on the obvious: certain of its Federations have not implemented and educated their staff, or their Athletes, so that they were all 'on the same page' as to enforcement options in the face of infractions...
12 August: WADA true story in Black and White...
... a truly sad conclusion: why doesn't WADA see this, when CAS does (almost) every time? Addressing the WADA 2008 Executive Committee November report (published in May 2009), we questioned why WADA had delayed or brushed lightly across the subject. We surmised that the Landis Inquisitions, and the Code redrafting exercise (during 2006–2007) had retarded the mandated compliance exercise (WADC requires biennial compliance reporting, the first due in 2006). WADA President Fahey was On The Record as to how treatment of WADA's compliance situation had certainly not been as 'Black and White' as it could (or should) have been.
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A singularly momentous occasion arrived on 1 October 2009, with an announcement from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) that it had made a profound arbitration rules change...
4 October: "WADA" rule from CAS & ICAS
... Henceforth attorneys in the CAS system could no longer work both sides of the anti-doping legal monopoly (as had always been permitted, if not encouraged): attorneys could choose to arbitrate (i.e.: sit on CAS Panels as 'Arbitration judge'), or represent the parties to such disputes (ie: the Athlete, or the prosecuting Federation) but no longer both. This modification – shutting down the 'revolving door' (aka the 'small group of insiders') – (ironically) supported the theory presented by Floyd Landis in his withdrawn US Federal Court case. Landis, claiming outrageous conflicts of interest, had requested the Court to overturn the second Arbitration decision against him.
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The never–ending saga (until he retires...) of Plucky Pierre Bordry, against the UCI cycling world intensified on 5 October, when Monsieur Bordry did the unthinkable (or completely irrational): he compiled a report, basing its contents from 'scrupulous note taking' by the AFLD staff who'd worked on the 2009 Tour, then submitted it to a reporter at Le Monde, and only dispatching it out to the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) on (perhaps?) the same day Le Monde published its story (the UCI received it on October 6: one day after the world reacted to Bordry's latest smear campaign)...
5 October: UCI methods attacked by AFLD
... the effect of Bordry's sordid allegations was to lambaste Pat McQuaid and his hard–working UCI DCO teams, creating another repetitious, now-blasé series of 'J'accuse!' revelations that ricocheted throughout the global sporting media. Those accusations included favouritism towards the Astana team of Armstrong and Tour winner Alberto Contador: UCI was accused of being 'lax', of being 'inept', 'ignorant of anti–doping rules' and much more.
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Another Le Monde article discussed some of the evidence 'new drugs' that Bordry claimed were found in the 'trash' accumulated during the Tour 2009...
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Once a year, it seems, an anti–doping issue requires a 'magnum opus' from WADAwatch. For 2009, we offered our series Ethic Cleansing / Nettoyage Éthique, (Parts I, II & III), which discussed the manifestations of Pierre Bordry's unlimited rage, his obsessive–compulsive behaviour against the UCI, Pat McQuaid and Lance Armstrong... which we labelled 'Cycling War II', and wondered (via our titles) if supervising Minister Bachelot, or Secretary of State for Sport Rama Yade were awakening to the need for some 'Ethic(al) Cleansing': at the Director's desk in the AFLD...
21 October: Ethic cleansing / Nettoyage éthique :
This series (in ultimately brief review) described the Bordry – Le Monde charges (Part I); described some pertinent AFLD 2009 statistics (hushed–up indications of massive marijuana use by French sportspeople?) from its website's report on its first semester 2009 activities (Part II), and offered a theory that WADA should undertake a Signatory investigation as a result of the inconsequential AFLD allegations, as an incident for review stemming from Code Article 20.5.2 and Article 15.4.
From that trilogy, we leapt into a review of side issues on the Second Cycling War, brought up by friends or other press articles...
23 October: The 'Phone-y War': updates on AFLD v UCI 2009
... Bordry made his compulsions public, via worldwide delivery of this 'secret anti–UCI report', mere days after the UCI announcement that two major French cycling teams had lost their ProTour licenses (quid pro quo?)...
29 October: Lord of the Leaks (Bordry déchainé)
... another report, a day after Bordry unveiled his Fall Campaign aka Cycling War II, focused on French President Nicolas Sarkozy's flight to Kazakhstan (and its capital city of Astana, home of the cycling team's financial sponsors) to negotiate some four billion Euro in bilateral trade agreements. A prominent, semi–retired French sporting journalist surmised that these Le Monde articles (whose hidden–yet–obvious agenda rang through every slanted sentence) may have added moments of 'delicatesse' to Sarkozy's commercial negotiations. An Australian paper castigated the 'investigation' brought out by French police, of the medical waste found in custody of the commercial enterprise contracted by a majority of Tour teams to deal with the disposal of 'medical waste': 'hundreds of syringes, etc.' and other damning items. As October wound down we all waited...
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The UCI replied to these AFLD charges before the end of October, offering scathingly objective responses, combined with damning counter-charges, which took the entire preposterous concept of AFLD science and turned it upside-down, inside-out...
2 November: Cycling War II: the UCI shows its honour
... a Top–Ten example: Bordry's Agency chose a psychiatrist (!) as one of the two AFLD DCOs charged with 'drawing blood' (couldn't he find a more suitable doctor to spend 20 days tracking doping in the Tour, during France's prime vacation month?). UCI revealed that the Doctor discussed that drawing blood was not a normal function in his day–to–day professional life, thus that Doctor was not 'comfortable' with this activity: this still seems dangerously unconscionable. October ended with a weakly-worded presse communiqué from Plucky Pierre, which blithely acknowledged receipt of the UCI response report, and remarked that AFLD would not issue further 'public comment' on this matter. WADAwatch wondered if the result of that communiqué was dictated from 'on high': Bordry's superiors...
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The gravity of Cycling War II helped propel WADAwatch into the video era... the creation of 'STRAIGHT DOPE' (better on YouTube) owes thanks to Plucky Pierre and his host of ghostly phantoms, parading around Halloween as accusations against the UCI. Our dynamic short film (9m54s) dissected the AFLD accusations, profiles the UCI evidence and created a new genre of niche Internet 'webcasting'.
18 November: A Belated WADAnniversary present...
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What better way to round out the year 2009, the Year of WADA non-Compliance (with a Gold Medal Winner in Pierre Bordry), than to analyze the WADA 2008 Laboratory Statistics Overview. The Lab-stats Overview purported to show a rise in 'doping' situations through the inclusion, in its statistical charts, of Atypical Findings numbers in the 2008 compilations. However, those AF determinations were not legal items until January 1, 2009. There's no explanation for the inclusion in a report comprising a collection of 'determinations' from the prior year, of 'lab determinations' which had not yet taken legal effect until the above date; it would be somewhat like increasing the 2008 Census because women conceived a baby during that year (But was born in 2009)...
22 November: The Beau-jo (Lab stats) Nouveau est arrivée
... By WADA's own statistics, it seems evident that Laboratory Standardization does not seem to include uniformity in lab performance. But of course that's permissible under the International Standard for Laboratories:
5.4.4.1 Selection of Methods
Standard methods are generally not available for Doping Control analyses. The Laboratory shall develop, validate and document methods for the detection of substances present on the Prohibited List and for associated Metabolites or Markers or related substances. Note that for many substances, the associated Metabolites are detected, thereby confirming the metabolism and the administration of a Prohibited Substance. [Ww: emphasis added]
Lab performances in 2008 ranged from 0.51pc to 4.98pc ('Findings' (combined AAF and AF numbers) as a percentage of total A Samples analyzed): the Beijing and Paris labs marking these 'extremes'. In the perverse world of statisticians, one could say that there's nearly a 900 per cent variance between labs showing least and most Positive AAF+AF Findings: we hope by 2011 that WADA has agreed that this should be cut down to a less than 500pc variation? Even more doubtful, was WADA's insertion of Footnote 2 of Table A1 (et al) which stated:
“... Adverse Analytical Findings (AAF) in years 2003 to 2007 included findings that are defined in 2008 as Atypical Findings”.
WADAwatch thought (thinks) that WADA's inclusion of Footnote 2 calls into question the very integrity of WADA's laboratory analysis system, by using revisionist historian tactics to redefine its earlier 'sacrosanct' statistics. Is Ww alone, in questioning how (and why) so many anti–doping headlines involve Athletes, when so few examine the WADA-accredited laboratories that make those headlines possible?...
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And a week ago we published WADA Concept: Good Sciencemanship
Conclusion
Remember: when WADA appeals against certain Awards that offer Athletes a less–than two–year suspension, they are sometimes attacking the Symptom, instead of their own autonomous Disease... the disease being non–compliance by WADA Signatory Agencies and Federations. WADA perceives this as a problem that benefits Athletes: CAS usually sees this (to the “... comfortable satisfaction” standard of WADAjurisprudenceWorld) as a failure of WADA to command and promote compliance by its Signatories, that have misconceived, misconstrued, or misinformed Athletes concerned by their Regulations, or the implementation of those.
Will 2009 be remembered in WADA History as its Year of Transition: when WADA began a tectonic shift from its original Code to the new version? Or from the nebulous Grey created under Dick Pound, to the Honourable John Fahey's preference for Black and White? The premature (IWwHO) inclusion of not–yet, not-legally-defined 2008 AF statistics does not appear to be a reassuring trend. By prioritizing compliance, and accomplishing this quest, within its family of Signatory Agencies (and their Laboratories), and Signatory Federations (Rules implementation, Athletes' education and disciplinary objectivity), a concerted effort could help wean WADA away from costly appeals against 'sort-of' guilty Athletes.
WADA should contemplate Benjamin Franklin's (or Henry Burton's?) descriptive saying “Penny wise and pound foolish”, by prioritizing Signatory Compliance, and follow the sage advice offered over 15 years ago, when CAS wrote (in the Quigley case lost by drafting expert Attorney Young) about a need for an anti–doping system with 'clear rules', and admonishing that 'rule–makers... must begin by being strict with themselves'.
Yet the sad truth seems that only the second part of Franklin's saying has been dogma (or a pun) since WADA's historic inception...
... Pound foolish ...
Enjoy the Holiday of your most personal beliefs, from 'Everyone'...
..........@......... WADAWATCH
one hundred percent pure
copyright 2009 Ww
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