© Copyright – 2024 – Athletics Illustrated
Let’s Run’s Quote of the Day is the two paragraphs below originally written in the publication, The Age, from Australia. The Age article is behind a paywall.
Quote of the Day
“During the Court of Arbitration for Sport hearing (for a footballer represented by the same lawyer that represented Peter Bol), WADA’s lawyer revealed that Sport Integrity Australia investigators had seized Bol’s phone and discovered a screenshot of a letter from sport drug trafficker Conte to British sprinter Dwain Chambers.
The letter discussed micro-dosing EPO and how to avoid drug testers. The hearing was told it was photographed by Bol five weeks before he was drug-tested and returned an initial positive drug test.”
Fumbling the process
If this salacious news is true, then the bigger question is, what is the purpose of so-called courts of arbitration and sober second thoughts?
In January 2023, Bol was provisionally suspended by Athletics Australia for failing an out-of-competition doping test. The test showed signs of synthetic EPO. His suspension was lifted the following month because his B sample returned an atypical finding (ATF) for EPO. Sport Integrity Australia continued its investigation and in August 2023, Bol was cleared by Sports Integrity Australia to compete again.
Sport Integrity Australia’s decision made the anti-doping process look fallible when it held in its hand the very evidence it needed to prosecute.
Was the alleged screenshot a smoking gun that was dismissed because the defendant’s lawyer Paul Greene called the evidence “meaningless?” No, testing positive for synthetic EPO is the smoking gun. His B sample did not test clean, it tested with an atypical finding for EPO, in description, a different outcome, technically speaking, but enough to warrant a testing of the B sample, if the test results were reversed and the A sample had the atypical finding.
What is an atypical finding?
From the website, ISSUU, “When rEPO analysis results are inconclusive, it is reported as an Atypical Finding. This may be due to the presence of interferences in a sample, or the intensity of a potential synthetic EPO signal is too low to enable conclusive identification. An Atypical Finding result requires further investigation.
The problem is that EPO has a short half-life in serum (the half-life of rhEPO-a is 8.5 ± 2.4 hours). EPO is undetectable in urine after 3–4 days of injection. Apparently, the half-life is just five hours in blood.
The investigative process needs to be investigated
Sports Integrity Australia needs to be investigated. The investigation that the organization conducted needs to be investigated too.
Which organization would be responsible for that exploration? The World Anti-Doping Agency is busy at this time defending itself from the war of words currently raging between USADA, the United States Anti-Doping Agency and WADA. This, over the alleged bungle of mass doping with the Chinese swim team.
Australia does not have sports-specific legislation creating criminal offences related to doping in sport. However, the Commonwealth, states and territories have all enacted legislation which criminalizes certain actions or conduct which also constitutes an Anti-Doping Rule Violation. Perhaps a criminal investigation into the process of Sport Integrity Australia’s examination of the anti-doping process could be initiated.
The outcome — voila! — Bol, may never dope again. As ridiculous as it would be, anti-doping would manage to fumble to achieve the ultimate goal: to weed out dopers. If he tested positive again, the effect would be satire imitating life. Sport Integrity Australia, lawyer Greene, and Bol would all be drawn and quartered.
