WADA opening, WADA PERFORMANCE!

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).

(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, or

... 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]:

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:

1. 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.
   
   
   
2. 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.
   
   
   
3. 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.
   
   
   
4. 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??

Mr Fahey, WADAwatch calls upon you to make that a principal basis of your chance to remake WADA on the right path, with the right motivations, based on the right science, with your good colleagues: work on the science, work on promoting more of the confessions we've seen in 2007 from MarionJones (or Conté) or Bjarne Riis.

Bring SCIENCE back to WADA, and to its ACCREDITED LABORATORIES.


WELCOME ALL, to the JOHN FAHEY era

.......@.............WADAwatch

© 2008 ZENmud productions

WADA meeting with Victor Conte

From the cbc.ca website, comes the article of the week:

Victor Conte meets with WADA's Dick Pound

"I did provide specific information regarding how athletes involved in doping around the world are so easily able to circumvent the anti-doping procedures in place."

[.....]

“As someone who was able to evade their system for so long, it was easy for me to point out the many loopholes that exist and recommend specific steps to improve the overall effectiveness of their program.”

And an interesting Poundian remark followed:

"We will try to build up a relationship where he will have confidence in me using the information he has in the right way. We will try to get a better handle on what he knows directly, and what he knows as having been part of an overall operation."

There is ample evidence already in the world's eye, which suggests that the Conte's or the BALCO's of the world have the upper hand, regarding the eternal struggle between the science of doping, and the science of ANTI-doping.

It will be interesting to monitor, during the winter months to come, how Dick Pound will pass this assignment to his successor John Fahey, and to the WADA Committee on Laboratory Standardization.

Until such time as WADA can convince Laboratory Directors, from all the continents, to align their material assets and scientific methodology to the highest standards possible, it is the fear at WADAwatch that confession, more than testing, confirmation and arbitration, that will propel WADA forward on its quest to eliminate (to the greatest extent possible) doping from human sports achievement.


News FLASH: Geneva, Switzerland, announced its candidature for the 2018 Winter Olympics, today :-)

Watch WADA!
..........@...........WADAwatch

WADA SIX: luncheon of champions

Who didn't think that, at the WADA World Conference on Doping in Sport, that a simple blog author could find himself pampered by a very organized Spanish catering staff, among International Federation representatives, Federation Medical Officers, an international arbitrator for the CAS, a journalist from Portugal, for a lively conversation discussing the Floyd Landis case, how important expert opinions are in these doping cases, and many other topics...

This afternoon session is on testing and related advances... WADAwatch is going to shut down for the rest of the day, and get someone to help us have a better internet-wifi connection in the Observers' Dungeon... where I am soon destined to return.

(Before they catch Ww copping a hot-wire connection!)


Watch WADA!!


..........@..........WADAwatch

WADA in Madrid: News Item

There's a great, objective, hitting-all-subjects article from the BBC Sport site. Steroids busts in the US and Mexico, Marion Jones in tears, it's a must-read...

Read it for such insightful comments as these:


Wada to herald new drugs approach

While there appears to be consensus on the importance of this new front in the anti-doping fight, the Wada succession is more problematic.

At present, it is more like a coronation than an election. But there has been some speculation that a last-minute rival to Fahey might emerge from Europe.

Fahey was a late candidate himself but his arrival on the scene prompted the previous front-runner, Jean-Francois Lamour, to pull out in high dudgeon.

The former French sports minister and Olympic fencer also quit as Wada's vice-president but not before accusing the organisation of "not having the strength to fight against doping".

But many observers believed the real reason for his exit was a misguided belief that he was going to get a clear run at Pound's job.

An angry Lamour also said Europe should give up on Wada and create its own anti-doping agency.

BBC Sport has spoken to a number of key figures in the anti-doping world and all dismissed Lamour's criticisms - some pointing out that he had plenty of chances to voice them during his time at Wada but did not.

Watching WADA LIVE!

..........@..........WADAwatch

Madrid FOUR: the Financing of WADA

Photo showing Jacques Roggé, from the earlier session, posted Thursday morning, which displays a 3m by 4m largescreen TV live feed for us victims of official WADA apartheid... but WADAwatch is not complaining, except for the dismal connection that barely feeds into the Salle for we Observers...

In trying to deal with the film of WADA President Pound, a computer-software crash ensued... the film software at WADAwatch Central is a heavy SOB, and it doesn't like to work fast.


Back on the Day 1 morning session...


In which a WADA Financial staff director Sir Craig Reedie and another, are discussing typical budget items for an organization funded for $25 million a year, as well as a huge problem facing WADA, caused by the worldwide collapse of the US dollar in the face of other currencies that WADA works with, principally the Canadian dollar, the Euro and the Swiss Franc.


An item of interest, is the $1.5 million 'Legal Contingency Fund'...


Also that WADA had received 73 applications for research grants (many of which are in Euros, and thus the cost in dollars is an increased budgetary expense), of which some 33 were funded.


SCOTT BURNS, as Representative to WADA, for the US, compliments Sir Craig Reedie about the open WADA bookkeeping...


Other delegations are offering the usual self-promoting compliments, and then several Federations have made an intervention as to the costs of doping-testing, and how they could perform the tests that they wish to achieve if they don't have the money?


Sir Craig Reedie discussed this dilemma and the coffee break came just in time for a naranja-juice; luckily Ww caught Dick Pound, glad-handing the crowd that adores being seen with him, while munching a croissant.


The second session on Day One, is going to discuss Education and doping... David Harmon to be on this panel, Secretary General of the WADA staff.


Going to publish this, while connection appears strong.

FLASH: one of the podium speakers reminded us of the line once made famous by Hillary Clinton: 'It takes a village to grow a child'...


Watch WADA!Live!

..........@.........WADAwatch

Madrid THREE: the WADAwatch intervention

Suffice to know, in diplomacy speak, the request for a microphone, to give one's thoughts, is called an 'intervention'...

(while typing this, we've enjoyed some of Spain's greatest flamenco guitarists and singers/dancers... Fiesta! in Madrid, señores and señoritas)

WADAwatch submitted the following text as requested prior to the deadline of November 2nd. There was confirmation of its receipt, but no assurance that WADAwatch would be given the microphone. It was suggested that, if the remarks were 'acceptable' that they would be included in the minutes published after the reunion had ended.

Here is the submitted text, as sent to WADA itself:

I thank WADA for presenting an opportunity to add an individual's voice to this important Conference. I submit this opinion on behalf of world citizens who are very concerned with doping in sport. My request is simple, my reasoning sound, and my hopes sincere:

WADA must commit much more of its budgetary resources, focus and energy to bring about actual harmonization within the family of WADA-accredited laboratories, to improve their scientific practice, and results management procedure.

IF:

1. Giro d'Italia B Samples must be analysed in Madrid because the facility in Rome is not capable of performing a Salbutamol test (Giro d'Italia/Petacchi);
2. An International Federation relocates testing to a laboratory that is over three thousand km away, for its international event taking place only 18 km from a WADA-accredited laboratory, (ITF/Roland Garros/Montreal); or,
3. A laboratory can close for vacation while under contract to perform testing for the world's most important cycling event (AFLD: département des analyses/cyclist Iban Mayo/Ghent lab in Belgium)

THEN:
There exists sufficient evidence of non-harmonization within the sphere of WADA-accredited laboratories. Until addressed, this mission-critical situation remains a detriment, a liability towards victory in the advancing battle to combat sports-doping. On 24 October, 2007, the EU Presidency (Portugal) held a meeting in Lisbon, of EU Sports Directors: it included this observation as part of their draft official document:

“Recognising that the World Anti-Doping Code 2003 has been a success in providing a common background for the worldwide harmonisation of anti-doping provisions for the public authorities and the Olympic movement; ...”

However, the Athletes who place themselves in your hands, want more than 'a common background', they want you to implement scientific Laboratory harmonization as rapidly as possible, as found in the Introduction and Foundation Principles of the WADA CODE. This will benefit all Athletes by producing reliable, state-of-the-art results, and with properly timed distribution to the press.

Athletes are increasingly aware of the 'strict liability' assigned to their conduct on and off the sporting scene. However, they face lab-work by WADA-accredited laboratories that do not operate under the same strict liability standard. They face premature and saturated press coverage of their cases, prior to the date by which such information should be presented. A questionnaire emailed to WADA's 34 laboratories (now 33), requested feedback on further proposed changes to the WADA CODE: scientific reliability, results management and regulatory means of addressing laboratory irregularities were all addressed. No responses by WADA laboratories have been returned, which dashed my hopes to report on them here. I offer a copy of that Questionnaire today, to any and all Signatories who share these concerns.

Medical and Forensic laboratories work around the globe daily, under international or domestic standards often more rigorous than those found developed in the WADA CODE 2003, and ISL or IST 2004. They have no benefit of the 'presumption' within CODE Article 3.2.1. Should not WADA-accredited laboratories be brought up to the level one would expect, if a loved family member was facing life-threatening surgery?

In CONCLUSION, the best and purest interests of WADA would be achieved, if it devoted time in 2008 to rectify this legal imbalance, through further modification of the WADA CODE, ISL and IST, as has been proposed.

+ + + + + +

Thus the world now has a chance to read, what WADAwatch may not be able to present in Madrid...

Watching WADA LIVE!

..........@..........WADAwatch

Madrid ONE: the Apartheid, and Swag-Bag

Hola! From Madrid


Time posted 10h20 CET: An easy connection, through easyJet to Madrid, from the airport to the Conference Centre: the Palacio Municipal de Congressos is one Metro stop away from Terminals One, Two and Three.

A short detour for accreditation (I hope it was easier than becoming a ... WADA laboratory?), a lengthy session with very friendly, competent and sincere Spanish security police, and then...

The Apartheid treatment began.

When we registered, they showed 'Observers' as occupying what looked like the back row, and yet, when WADAwatch tried to enter, we were told to take the elevator down into the holes below, another subterranean location where members of the press, or other bloggers, or whoever, are arranged pell-mell.

The first session began, while the web-server and wifi network are either under-capacity or over-utilised: no signal is allowing this post to be 'real-timed' to you.

We do want to thank the government of Spain for a lovely USB memory-key, and the Swag Bag itself looks like a new computer-carry bag that comeZENhandy to travel back and forth without a whole suitcase full of weekend affairs.

The usual welcomes are pedantic, various officials from the Spanish Olympic Committee, and Madrid's mayor, are slowly warming up the audience for the opening act.

(Forgive any formatting errors, I'll get to them later: stand by for a youTube of a portion of Dick Pound's opening comments) Watching WADA LIVE!

..........@..........WADAwatch

T minus TWO: countdown to Madrid and News Roundup

WADAwatch is on the move!

To Madrid, where hopefully a wifi-connection and a bit of sangria would liberate the conscious-stream of information offered to those who are interested in what WADA will work out, from its three-day session starting Thursday.

So this post will be brief.

NEWS Roundup

India needs a laboratory, what with its passion for cricket, and the coming Commonwealth Games in 2010:

India Needs Certified Lab For Dope Testing Immediately: WADA

India needs to put in place a proper drug-testing programme soon, especially with the Commonwealth Games coming up in 2010, says a top official of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

'I would think the government and sports bodies in India would be seriously considering a fully-certified laboratory for dope testing,' David Howman, the director general of WADA, told IANS here.

+ + + + + +

Mr Pound is going out the big door, with a typically brash, retrospective commentary on his record in WADA:

Dick Pound: Making enemies was part of job

Although there are some who will not miss his grand-standing, outspoken style, his willingness to lob verbal grenades in the direction of certain athletes at the slightest invitation by the media, he has no regrets about the enemies he has made along the way.

"It's a matter of confronting cheating when you see it," he says. "There is organised cheating going on and it's not going to go away if we all hold hands and say 'ummmm'. These are people who know the rules and in 99.9 per cent of cases they don't give a shit about them. They're destroying sport and taking rewards away from fellow athletes.”

+ + + + + +

That's a short-n-sweet roundup of the latest news: WADAwatch is relocating to Madrid on Thursday morning, hasta la vista todos hermanos y hermanas!

Soon, live from Madrid...


Watch WADA!!

..........@..........WADAwatch

WADA Lab Director Offers Stunning Statistics...

According to cyclingnews.com, Swiss laboratory director Martin Saugy has alleged that in-depth examination of Tour de France riders' 'samples taken at the health controls' revealed some 47 of 189 starting riders were assisted through blood transfusions or EPO.

However, Saugy qualified his statements by indicating that the results of the tests were insufficient to be declared a positive. However, in the newly-revised, soon-to-be approved WADA CODE 2007, Article 7.3 “Review of Atypical Findings” addresses exactly such a case. Here's the applicable wording:

As provided in the International Standards, in some circumstances Laboratories are directed to report the presence of Prohibited Substances, which may also be produced endogenously, as Atypical Findings subject to further investigation. Upon receipt of an A Sample Atypical Finding, the Anti-Doping Organization responsible for results management shall conduct a review to determine whether: (a) an applicable therapeutic use exemption has been granted, or (b) there is any apparent departure from the International Standard for Testing or International Standard for Laboratories that caused the Atypical Finding. If that review does not reveal an applicable therapeutic use exemption or departure that caused the Atypical Finding, the Anti-Doping Organization shall conduct the required investigation.

Notes of legal import, concerning what is written above:

• '...some circumstances' is overly vague: which circumstances? If it is really '...provided in the International Standards', proper legal drafting would offer reference to specific Articles. Searching for the word 'Atypical' in both the ISL and IST reveals no (via Adobe Reader v8.0) instances of the word, nor is 'unusual' to be found in the context of the above citation of CODE 2007 Article 7.3;

• There exists no definition in the ISL rev. 4.8 of July 2007, and the definition provided in the CODE rev3 is meager: “Atypical Finding: A report from a laboratory or other WADA-approved entity which requires further investigation as provided by the International Standard for Laboratories or related Technical Documents prior to the determination of an Adverse Analytical Finding.”;

• The end of this new Article parallels sufficiently the existing wording from WADA CODE 2003, Article 7.1, as to the results management process, although WADAwatch has already put WADA and its laboratories on notice that there is a serious breach in the legal sense, by not offering words that control how to deal with any deficiencies in laboratory work, here encompassed in the singular word 'departure';
  
  

• WADA still has nine days to prepare a proper text for these documents (until 15 November, and the opening of the Madrid World Conference on Doping in Sport).

Thus as we wind down to Madrid, WADAwatch again provides in-depth analysis of the incompleted work to be performed for WADA to maintain its dignified position in the world of anti-doping in Sport.

Watch WADA!!

..........@..........WADAwatch

The 2007 WADA Questionnaire for laboratories...

This post is being published (nearly) simultaneously at:

+ + + + crystelZENmud and WADAwatch + + + +

A questionnaire for the WADA-accredited laboratories was laboriously elaborated, fine-tuned and published, to request information of a public nature. It was emailed to each of the WADA-accredited labs via the email addresses that were public record via the WADA website. Nearly one hundred hours of legal-training, and evaluation-training, went in to the drafting of this document.

It also put these publicly-financed entities 'on notice' that the world was watching them, and WADA, as that organization (publicly-financed through contributions from governments and Sporting Federations) bore down on the month of November 2007: the month in which WADA would 'elect' its new President, to replace outgoing iconoclastic Dick Pound, and approve the changes that had been drafted into the WADA CODE 2003 (soon becoming WADA CODE 2007).

The Questionnaire was only eight pages long (another link to it here), and a DISCLAIMER advised the recipients (from each of the then-34 laboratories) that the Questionnaire had no (Zero) affiliation with WADA, nor was it sponsored, nor approved in advance, by WADA.

The Questionnaire was also sent to these laboratories on three separate occasions, to ensure timely attention to the important issues that were presented.

TODAY, ZENmud productions announces the results.

?

Correct!

Not one laboratory, in the interests of transparent, independent research, was capable or inclined towards revealing its institutional opinion on the issues that were raised, by crystelZENmud.

Not one laboratory went on the record, with its stated goals for improving their own performance, and that of their co-Signatory institution labs;

Not one laboratory preferred to show the world that self-evaluation and self-improvement were a part of their agenda for the WADA World Conference on Doping in Sport.

Are these laboratories perfect? If they were, cases would not be falling apart as they have from many cycling-world incidents, and many more beyond.

What were the issues that these laboratories avoided answering? Not very difficult to list them:

1. Were labs satisfied as to WADA's ability to uphold 'universal harmonization' as found in the WADA CODE Introduction? (Question 1)
   
2. Is the FUNDAMENTAL RATIONAL applicable to Athletes only, or other Signatories (such as labs), in terms of 'respect for rules and laws'? (Q 3)
   
3. Should the 'presumption' provided for lab work, found in Article 3.2.1, which allows labs an advantage as to the quality of their lab work, be coupled to an Article that would offer means whereby a lab could be suspended or discredited if its work were found to be sub-standard? (Q 4)
   
4. Does Article 6.4 of the WADA CODE need amplification, or should a new sub-Article of the CODE be introduced, which would create a mechanism for WADA to address Signatories' requests for investigation of a lab, upon well-founded bases for investigation of lab test results, or results management issues? (Q 5)
   

As author of this Questionnaire, ZENmud Central is saddened that the laboratories chose not to respond: they will receive a final chance to do so in Madrid, at the WADA World Conference on Doping in Sport.

Did ZENmud productions really anticipate voluntary disclosure of such information?

Yes! The news we receive, especially from the cycling world, is an amalgam of intrigue, testing failures and laboratory 'vacations' (read: 'work stoppages' or STRIKES)

If a change of heart possesses any of the laboratories, crystelZENmud will post results in the future: but it looks bleak at the present, for 'transparency' to reign in WADA-world.

Watch WADA-accredited laboratories

..........@..........WADAwatch