UCI methods attacked by AFLD

A Breaking Story...

The French newspaper LeMonde has published an article today (en français), which reports that the French Agency AFLD has transmitted a report to WADA and the UCI, decrying the UCI procedures for testing and sample protection in the Tour de France, singling out their perceived 'protection' for the team Astana, which featured Tour victor Alberto Contador, and American champion Lance Armstrong.


Selected WADAwatch translations follow.

First:

“The Astana team benefited from privileged treatment by the officials of the UCI.” Such is the conclusion offered by the French Agency for the Fight against Doping (AFLD: l'Agence française de lutte contre le dopage) in a report produced to document the process of doping controls during the 2009 Tour de France, of which Le Monde has been made aware.

Second:

It was sent Monday, October 5, to the UCI and WADA, to the Ministers of Health and Sports, Roselyne Bachelot and Rama Yade, as well as to Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), the owner of the 'Grand Buckle' (Fr: le Grande Boucle). This ten page document, realized notably from the scrupulously–maintained journals by the two doctors whose mission from the AFLD was to undertake the receipt of urinary and blood samples during the race, is overpowering for the UCI, the organization responsible for controls during the 2009 Tour which, contrary to precedent editions, has not been muddied from a single positive case.

Third:

The Agency underlines equally that the UCI had fully transmitted the information regarding the teams' locations during pre-Tour preparations for the undertaking of controls... with the exception of Astana. “A retention of information which doesn't go towards the sense of the fight against doping,” comments the AFLD.

Concerning Lance Armstrong, the report reveals otherwise that, on July 24th, a photographer, without authorization, had taken photos during the control of the seven–time victor of the Tour in his hotel room, which “risks to invalidate the procedure.”

Quite the 'accablant' report, Monsieur Pierre Bordry. Some may question if M. Bordry was more focused on 'busting' the UCI, or doing his job.


No word from the AFLD about this report is on their website, as of today, and one doubts that either WADA or UCI will make this 'Official' report public in the near future.


WADAwatch reminds its faithful readers of two prior posts, one of which concerned the conclusions of the process this past springtime, regarding the 'failure' of AFLD to bring an action against Lance Armstrong for allegedly 'refusing' to submit to a control:

Tuesday, 28 April 2009

AFLD-ermath redux: Lance unleashed....

(AKA the 'Right to Shower' - inconsistencies)

QUOTE:
Interestingly, the NY Times reported that the AFLD:

“[antidoping agency] said that Armstrong was required to stay with the drug tester at all times, and that the tester had warned him of that.”

However, as to the AFLD, 'l'Equipe' reported the following:

Le médecin contrôleur avait en effet rédigé un rapport suite au contrôle car le septuple vainqueur du Tour n'avait pas été en sa présence en permanence, s'éclipsant notamment pour prendre une douche. Le collège de l'AFLP a décidé «de prendre en considération les explications écrites du sportif et, en conséquence, de ne pas ouvrir de procédure disciplinaire à son encontre pour ces faits.»

Our own translation would be:

The doctor-controller (DCO in WADAspeak) had in effect issued a report following the control, because the seven-time Tour (de France) winner had not been in his (the DCO's) presence permanently, eclipsing notably to take a shower. The Board of the AFLD decided "to take in consideration the written explanations from the Athlete and, by consequence, to not open a disciplinary procedure against him for these facts."

And secondly, how Ww noted (en français, avec notre très cher accent cowboy ('in French, in our precious 'cowboy' accent)) Madame la Ministre Rosalyne Bachelot "particularly, particularly, particularly" welcomed Lance back to the Tour after his three-year retirement:

Friday, 3 July 2009

L'Homme qui entrait de (la douche) froid(e)...

Excusez-moi de vous écrire en français... chuis un peu 'cowboy' dans la langue de Molière...


Translated: "Excuse me to write to you in French, I am a bit 'cowboy' in the language of Molière"...

[...]

So as one of Tolkien's Orcs was to say in Peter Jackson's version of the Lord of the Rings...

"Looks like there's
meat back on the
table, boys..."

How will this new French attack be resolved?


Is the AFLD really attacking the entire system of worldwide antidoping control, as once-upon-a-time new WADA president John Fahey once stigmatized Floyd Landis, and his search for the truth? Are they alleging bribery, ('pots-de-vin' en français), scandal, intrigue, complaisance, negligence, or...

violations of the WADA International Standards for Testing?

(really: who would know better than AFLD, if
someone had violated WADA rules?)

Are there any truth to the AFLD insinuendoes? Is the UCI protecting Lance, Alberto, and the Kazahkstan team Astana?


It couldn't possibly be, that this year's slower-than-previously-doped Tours actually WAS 99.44 per cent pure? In spite of Greg Lemond's persistent allegations otherwise, against Contador's 'sprint' to Verbier?


We wrote about that also:

Thursday, 30 July 2009

What WADA needs isn't... Greg LeMond

QUOTE:

Oh that Gregario...

... did Papa LeMond ever read the fable of Peter and the Wolf to his knee—riding son, during his early formative years, long before the future American cycling star-to-be became one?

[...]

This is a new saga, stay tuned! The conclusion of this scathing attack by AFLD on its partner in contract, and fellow Signatory to WADA, remains to be seen.

..................WADAwatch

100 percent pure

WADAwatch In Error (Testing v Doping Control)

On the subject of Floyd Landis' case being adjudicated in France, through a procedure that at best can be described as 'outlaw' (if France purports to be a Signatory in support of WADA), WADAwatch needs to acknowledge a small analytical error.

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

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