tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/asada-4779/articlesASADA – The Conversation2016-02-14T20:08:01Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/547122016-02-14T20:08:01Z2016-02-14T20:08:01ZElementary Watson? The status of Jobe Watson’s Brownlow Medal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111406/original/image-20160214-29192-1ykqglq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/David Crosling</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruling that Essendon footballers were <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-pomp-in-circumstance-cas-rules-against-essendon-players-53043">knowingly guilty of doping</a> in 2012, there have been spirited arguments <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/jeffrey-browne-says-jobe-watson-should-be-allowed-to-keep-his-2012-brownlow-medal/news-story/aabec6e2b2b172d3683b11a60d6217ea">for</a> and <a href="http://www.3aw.com.au/news/dwayne-russell-hits-out-at-good-bloke-defence-for-jobe-watsons-brownlow-20160204-gmm2hs.html">against</a> Jobe Watson retaining his medal as the league’s best and fairest player in that AFL season. </p>
<p>This article will not survey those competing perspectives. Its broad purpose is to explore loss of symbolic rewards for athletes suspended for doping, and to ponder decisions about allowing or disallowing a suspended athlete to retain a symbolic reward.</p>
<h2>The Essendon 34</h2>
<p>WADA’s successful appeal to CAS has resulted in 34 past or present Essendon footballers being banned from participation in any competitive sport until November 2016. Under the <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0ahUKEwjB0qHJvuLKAhWJk5QKHYQ8AfEQFggoMAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aflplayers.com.au%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2014%2F03%2FAFL-Anti-Doping-Code-2015-FINAL.pdf&usg=AFQjCNFeHKOU_cuHb9FwzW3sWrjX76zIrg&sig2=kygctBNlh_IDwuk30n1rcQ">AFL’s Anti-Doping Code</a>, which is in accord with the WADA Code, there are further constraints. Sanctioned players cannot be involved with Essendon or another sport club in any formal capacity, such as coaching or administration. </p>
<p>They can watch AFL games and other sport events, but must do so away from spaces where clubs and match officials congregate. If they step inside changerooms – even for an innocuous shake of hand or well-wishing – their suspension will wind back and start again. </p>
<p>These isolating conditions are typical for sanctioned athletes around the world.</p>
<h2>Further punishment?</h2>
<p>WADA does, however, give some leeway to sport bodies in terms of whether they apply additional penalties upon athletes who have been found guilty of doping. It cannot be a longer period of ineligibility; that is contrary to the WADA Code (as the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/sport/athletics/28319312">British Olympic Association</a> found out when it tried to introduce life bans for doping).</p>
<p>Controversially, a handful of <a href="http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest-news/german-dopers-face-three-year-jail-sentences-as-new-law-comes-into-force-205477">European countries</a> has taken steps to criminalise doping. Again <a href="http://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1023869/exclusive-wada-chief-voices-reservations-about-proposed-new-german-law">WADA</a> opposes an additional layer of punishment, but in this instance is powerless to stop <a href="https://www.wada-ama.org/en/media/news/2015-10/wada-statement-on-the-criminalization-of-doping-in-sport">sovereign governments</a> from putting athletes behind bars should they be proven – <a href="http://www.inbrief.co.uk/sports-law/athletes-doping-and-criminal-law.htm">beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law</a> – to have cheated.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/ioc-strips-us-2012-relay-medal-tyson-gay/story?id=31020658">International Olympic Committee</a> has a policy of stripping the results of dopers and requiring them to return medals. This approach is consistent with the view that doping provides an unfair advantage over other competitors, and that symbolic rewards associated with victory are tainted by performance fraud.</p>
<p>From this perspective the legitimacy of medals and trophies, as well as prizes and money, are called into question. One way of righting this wrong is to ensure that dopers are made invisible in the record books, and for those who finished immediately behind them to be elevated onto the dais.</p>
<h2>Individual sports</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.intjudo.eu/editor_up/up/WADA_Anti-Doping_CODE_2009_EN.pdf">2009 WADA Code</a> (which was operational in 2012) states the following:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>An anti-doping rule violation in individual sports in connection with an in-competition test automatically leads to disqualification of the result obtained in that competition with all resulting consequences, including forfeiture of any medals, points and prizes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the case of positive tests, this has led to the striking of numerous <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/16/olympics-drug-testing-medals-stripped_n_4789565.html">Olympic results</a> and records, as well as the stripping of medals from sanctioned athletes, with those <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/athletics/10796024/Russian-marathon-star-Liliya-Shobukhova-banned-for-two-years-and-stripped-of-medals-for-doping-violation.html">next in line being elevated</a> in terms of their finishing position and symbolic reward.</p>
<p>The timing of drug indiscretions is part of the decision making process. Russian heptathlete Tatyana Chernova had a 2009 urine sample re-tested in 2015; this showed the presence of an anabolic steroid. She was, however, able to retain her <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/athletics/11821640/Jessica-Ennis-Hill-frustrated-at-drug-cheat-retaining-2011-world-heptathlon-gold.html">title of 2011</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Chernova was banned and had two years of results wiped out by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency, but that period ended just 16 days before she won gold at the World Championships.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some decisions do seem peculiar. After confessed doper Marion Jones was retrospectively disqualified in, among several events, the 100m sprint at the Sydney Olympics, the runner-up, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2009/dec/14/katerina-thanou-100m-sydney-olympics">Katerina Thanou</a>, was given first place but not a gold medal. </p>
<p>Thanou retained her silver medal but – extraordinarily – was denied the 2000 Games gold medal because she missed several drug tests in the lead-up to the 2004 Games, where she eventually did not compete.</p>
<h2>Team sports</h2>
<p>WADA’s brief is to detect doping and to suspend sanctioned athletes, but it gives peak sport bodies leeway about how to deal with teams and their retention or otherwise of cups, premierships, medals and so on. </p>
<p>Thus, for team sports, there is some flexibility in the event of one or more player sanctions, with peak sport bodies having discretion to impose further punishments on a team (such as collective disqualification, fines and trade restrictions), and to pursue further punishments on individuals within a team (such as club-imposed fines and loss of salary).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.intjudo.eu/editor_up/up/WADA_Anti-Doping_CODE_2009_EN.pdf">WADA states</a> that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Disqualification or other disciplinary action against the team when one or more team members have committed an anti-doping rule violation shall be as provided in the applicable rules of the international federation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Decisions by sport bodies about who keeps what medal and why are not always simple or predictable. After the 2012 Olympics the <a href="http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/mobile/latestnews/France-finally-reap-Olympic-medals-for-Tyson-Gay-doping">US men’s 4x100m relay team</a> was stripped of its second placing after one member tested positive to an out-of-competition test. </p>
<p>By contrast, when one of the <a href="http://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1014467/exclusive-usa-allowed-to-keep-athens-2004-4x400m-relay-gold-medals-despite-drugs-admission">US women’s 4x400m relay team</a> admitted to drug use she was stripped of gold but her team mates retained first place and their medals.</p>
<p>WADA-compliant non-Olympic team sports, which are obviously not answerable to the IOC, have greater discretion about how and why the records and achievements of teams with sanctioned participants be stricken or remain. </p>
<p>Some are hardline. At the 2011 the International Surfing Association (ISA) <a href="http://www.surfermag.com/features/coming-down/#b7EytPv3PK2KoPk7.97">World Masters Championships</a>, the victor (and gold medallist), Australian Mark Richardson, tested positive in-competition for cannabis, after which he was disqualified for three months, his team docked points, and was stripped of individual honours. </p>
<p>According to ISA, a positive test meant they had an obligation to ban Richards (and to then consider ramifications for his team):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>While marijuana is not considered to be a performance-enhancing drug, it is a banned substance [in-competition] according to the World Anti Doping Association (WADA), of which the ISA is a signatory.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Unlike Richards and his team, Essendon had no championship to surrender, but there is consideration about the status of Jobe Watson’s 2012 Brownlow Medal. Here the AFL has the discretion to either allow Watson to retain that symbolic achievement or remove it from him (in which case it could be awarded to runners-up Trent Cotchin and Sam Mitchell, or given to no-one in that year). </p>
<p>As mentioned previously, WADA defers to peak sport bodies in terms of their “applicable rules” for disqualification or disciplinary action involving teams and members thereof. However, after looking through the anti-doping policies of several Australian sport organisations (as applicable to 2012), there is a general absence of specified “rules” about this. The reader is therefore left with the assumption that sports expected to consider situations on a case-by-case basis. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwj1vKjjxvbKAhVDjZQKHU34A2kQFggbMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aflcommunityclub.com.au%2Ffileadmin%2Fuser_upload%2FUmpire_AFL%2FLaws_of_the_Game%2FAFL_Anti-Doping_Code_2010_ASADA_FINAL.pdf&usg=AFQjCNFb9_3Bd_veIQtTI0sb7Y5ndwoTSw&sig2=Jl44HzxzT1CdEY4NJktH9w&bvm=bv.114195076,d.dGo">AFL Anti-Doping Code (2010)</a> is therefore typical in that respect.</p>
<h2>What should be done?</h2>
<p>In a last-ditch effort to clear their names, the Essendon players have appealed to the <a href="http://www.afl.com.au/news/2016-02-11/the-essendon-34-appeal-frequently-asked-questions.mobileapp">Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland</a>. They will sit out 2016 as required of sanctioned athletes, but hope to convince the Swiss court that the not guilty verdict of the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal should stand. </p>
<p>This means that there is a delay in the AFL’s decision-making on whether Watson should retain or be stripped of his 2012 Brownlow Medal. </p>
<p>Given the global practice for athletes who are sanctioned for doping to lose individual symbolic rewards (their team may sometimes be spared), it is difficult to see a cogent case for why the AFL would not feel obligated to follow suit. Although ASADA saw the Essendon players as naïve victims in their submission to the AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal, WADA subsequently won a case on appeal where the accused were depicted as willing accomplices in being administered a drug deemed to be performance enhancing.</p>
<p>Some athletes can be unlucky, such as the cannabis-smoking “doper” Mark Richardson. Pot luck indeed. </p>
<p>Other athletes can be lucky, such as Cameron Smith, who – despite his club being convicted of financial doping between 2006 and 2009 and the team stripped of premierships – was able to retain the Dally Messenger medal for the best NRL player in 2006 and the Golden Boot award for the best international rugby league player in 2007.</p>
<p>The NRL audit into the Melbourne Storm salary cap scandal ruled that the players <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjh6tu51PbKAhXEmZQKHT9fDrcQFggqMAM&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rugbyleague.com.au%2Fnrl%2F2011_storm_report.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGD0uODh7eR3edaLEczEwgKZu1PNg&sig2=uXBELBUCM-EM4zqp0nhXtg">“did not know”</a> they were part of a financial doping scam. No appeal on that verdict.</p>
<p>Watson has hardly been lucky, but when compared with Richardson he does not seem unlucky. Whether <a href="http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/42/7/549.full">intended or otherwise</a>, doping – as conceived by WADA and its prohibited list – has consequences that governments and sports sign up to. In the process there are numerous stories of athletes who have <a href="http://epublications.bond.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1328&context=blr">inadvertently</a> put themselves at risk of an anti-doping rule violation. Some of the penalties end careers. All of them either damage or destroy reputations. </p>
<p>Even if the Essendon players win their case in Switzerland, which most pundits believe is highly unlikely, WADA can appeal that decision. It could be 2017 before this anti-doping saga is over.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54712/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
With the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruling that Essendon footballers were knowingly guilty of doping in 2012, there have been spirited arguments for and against Jobe Watson retaining his medal…Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/532122016-01-18T19:26:58Z2016-01-18T19:26:58ZAfter the Essendon saga, any reform to anti-doping regimes must give athletes a greater say<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108376/original/image-20160118-20933-1ri5vib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C79%2C4096%2C2336&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Athletes are marginalised in anti-doping processes led by the World Anti-Doping Agency.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Hendrik Schmidt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency, has moved on from its <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-pomp-in-circumstance-cas-rules-against-essendon-players-53043">relatively minor clash</a> with AFL club Essendon to tackle allegations of drug use and cover-ups in <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-athletics-doping-report-piles-more-pressure-on-iaaf-but-there-mustnt-be-an-over-reaction-52991">international athletics</a>. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Australia is left to pick up the pieces of the Essendon saga, which has left 34 athletes suspended from sport for the 2016 football season. Greens leader Richard di Natale last week asked some <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/afl/essendon-doping-richard-di-natale-urges-break-from-wada-code/news-story/8070d0aac59c64347a6debfa8856a23e?login=1">pretty difficult questions</a> – the most tricky of which is the future of anti-doping in Australian sport. Calling on the federal government to inquire into the Essendon case, di Natale said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The system is broken when the blame is laid with players and other individuals and organisations aren’t faced with the same sort of penalties.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Any reform must acknowledge the historical roots of the anti-doping movement and give greater voice to those most affected by anti-doping processes – individual athletes.</p>
<h2>Founding of anti-doping</h2>
<p>A <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jsporthistory.38.2.237">potted history</a> of the ideological basis to the anti-doping system is that it stemmed from pre-second world war anxieties about “doped professionals” demeaning “clean amateurs”. </p>
<p>After the war, 1960s anxieties around the Cold War and the war on drugs were added to the mix. The East took on a <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/the-state-sponsored-doping-program/52/">systematic approach</a> to doping, while the West acknowledged it had to compete in a doping arms race or do something else.</p>
<p>A series of drug crises drove the “something else”. The anti-doping movement manufactured some of these crises. It seemed quite comfortable with the idea of manipulating evidence to suit its ends. For example, the <a href="https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=iBZVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=YJMDAAAAIBAJ&pg=736%2C173634">claim</a> that famed British cyclist Tommy Simpson died from an overdose of amphetamines fails to acknowledge the role heatstroke, overexertion and dehydration due to diarrhoea and alcohol misuse played.</p>
<p>The crises mounted through the 1980s and 1990s as a result of a general lack of interest in managing drugs. Anti-doping was understood to be a charade necessary to protect the growing commercial interests of sport. </p>
<p>The doping scandals at the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1998/07/98/tour_de_france/144326.stm">Tour de France</a> and <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sport/47684.stm">World Swimming Championships</a> in 1998 were the last straw for some governments around the world. They forced sport to move beyond charade and actually implement independent anti-doping policies.</p>
<p>Given the endemic corruption in sport, governments required the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to share administration of anti-doping procedures. They therefore took a <a href="https://www.wada-ama.org/en/governance">50% stake</a> in WADA.</p>
<h2>Alternative drug control</h2>
<p>Through the 1960s and 1970s, collective bargaining in US professional men’s sport addressed the issue of drugs. Those sports appeared to be more concerned with athlete drug misuse and abuse. Team owners had an interest in making sure their employee-athletes were available for lucrative events.</p>
<p>Collective bargaining meant that athlete associations were interested in protecting members from summary termination of employment, especially when the drug consumption may be related to sport. As a result, the three major sporting leagues in the US – Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Football League (NFL) and National Basketball Association (NBA) – all developed policies that saw treatment as the first step where drugs agreed to damage the sport’s integrity were detected.</p>
<p>This suggests that when athletes have a voice in drug control, drug control tends to focus on what is referred to as <a href="http://www.ihra.net/what-is-harm-reduction">“harm reduction”</a> – that is, the focus is on ensuring that athletes are OK.</p>
<p>While this approach sounds like a good idea, the devil is in the detail. There have been problems with harm-reduction approaches to drug control in these sports. The power imbalances between owners and players meant that drug-based exploitation still happened. The NFL seems to have had the <a href="http://deadspin.com/its-remarkably-easy-to-beat-nfl-drug-testing-1695935246">most problems</a> in this regard. </p>
<p>That said, the AFL in Australia has taken a harm-reduction approach with its <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-brave-new-world-the-afls-updated-illicit-drug-policy-49991">illicit drug policy</a>. Despite the bad press, medical evidence suggests it is actually one of the better approaches to drug control in sport.</p>
<p>Professional sport in the US has been forced to adopt stricter anti-doping procedures. In particular, the extraordinary political pressure arising from the <a href="http://files.mlb.com/mitchrpt.pdf">Mitchell Report</a> into doping in baseball meant the MLB was forced to change its anti-doping policies. However, it is still <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nfl-drugs-idUSKBN0UB1I520151229">not a signatory</a> to the WADA Code.</p>
<p>The AFL was <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1417859.htm">initially resistant</a> to the introduction of the WADA Code in 2005. The Australian government forced the AFL to sign up to the code with the threat of cutting it off from public funding. One wonders whether MLB and AFL are any better off for the change.</p>
<h2>How did the alternative emerge?</h2>
<p>The one key difference that has led to such different policies emerging in US sports is the involvement of athletes. While athlete associations were and remain relatively weak in sport, that they are present at all means athletes have a greater voice than they would if the major American leagues were signatories to the WADA Code.</p>
<p>By comparison, athletes are marginalised in WADA-led anti-doping processes.</p>
<p>WADA’s governance arrangements exclude athletes and athlete associations or unions from having a role in anti-doping decision-making. WADA’s <a href="https://www.wada-ama.org/en/executive-committee">executive committee</a> and <a href="https://www.wada-ama.org/en/foundation-board">foundation board</a> are comprised of IOC members and government ministers – including Australia’s sports minister, Sussan Ley. </p>
<p>Athletes are given the opportunity to advise these boards through the <a href="https://www.wada-ama.org/en/athlete-committee">athlete committee</a>. However, the athletes invited onto the committee are handpicked for their support of anti-doping, ensuring that no views critical of anti-doping can be voiced. The reasons for the exclusion of athletes from anti-doping governance lie in paternalistic assumptions that pervade how sport is run.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108378/original/image-20160118-20970-mbefm2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108378/original/image-20160118-20970-mbefm2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108378/original/image-20160118-20970-mbefm2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108378/original/image-20160118-20970-mbefm2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108378/original/image-20160118-20970-mbefm2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=771&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108378/original/image-20160118-20970-mbefm2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108378/original/image-20160118-20970-mbefm2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108378/original/image-20160118-20970-mbefm2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=969&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Non-Olympic sport such as Australian rules is denied access to the WADA boards.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Joe Castro</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In reference to the Essendon case, it is worth noting that non-Olympic sport (such as Australian rules or rugby league) is denied access to the WADA boards.</p>
<p>The anti-doping movement might say that athletes and non-Olympic sport are given a voice through their minister. However, that is one voice and one vote among many. They can be easily steamrolled. </p>
<p>The anti-doping movement might also argue that its extensive consultations on WADA Code revisions are an opportunity for athletes to have a voice. But it is difficult to have confidence that the interests of athletes or non-Olympic sport might be heard given the anti-doping movement’s willingness to use evidence “tactically”.</p>
<h2>Giving a voice to athletes and non-Olympic sport</h2>
<p>The question for di Natale and Ley is whether they will have the courage to demand that WADA change to give voice to athletes and non-Olympic sport.</p>
<p>Changing the WADA board to have equal representation of Olympic sport, non-Olympic sport, governments and athletes might be a good start. </p>
<p>Alternatively, if WADA is unable to change, perhaps Australia – having learned some hard lessons with the Essendon case – should use those lessons to develop a better approach to drug control for sport.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53212/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason Mazanov has received funding from the Australian Anti-Doping Research Prorgramme and WADA Social Science Research Programme. He also became a member of the Essendon Football Club in 2014 for research purposes. Dr Mazanov takes the view that there must be some form of drug control for sport, and that such drug control needs to evolve from the lessons learned from the failures of the anti-doping policy. </span></em></p>Having learned some hard lessons with the Essendon case, Australia should lead the way in developing a better approach to drug control and anti-doping in sport.Jason Mazanov, Senior Lecturer, School of Business, UNSW-Canberra, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/530972016-01-13T00:56:44Z2016-01-13T00:56:44ZTheir club failed them, but Essendon players can’t escape blame for doping ban<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107959/original/image-20160112-6977-1wqecj0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thirty-four current and former Essendon footballers have been suspended for 12 months for a doping offence.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Tracey Nearmy</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fingers are <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jan/12/reaction-to-essendon-doping-verdict-a-miscarriage-of-justice-says-james-hird">pointing again</a> at the Essendon Football Club for its failures in the long-running supplements fiasco. This follows the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s (CAS) <a href="http://resources.news.com.au/files/2016/01/12/1227705/420711-cas-decision.pdf">decision</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-pomp-in-circumstance-cas-rules-against-essendon-players-53043">ban 34 past and present players</a> for one year for contravening the World Anti-Doping Code.</p>
<p>A club’s coaches and other officials are supposed to have a duty of care to ensure a safe working environment and practices that are compliant with the anti-doping code. But the club’s failings in this area have already been dealt with. The AFL <a href="http://www.afl.com.au/news/2013-08-27/essendon-penalties">penalised Essendon heavily</a> in 2013 for health and safety shortcomings that were judged to bring the game into disrepute.</p>
<p>But what of the players’ liability?</p>
<h2>What does the code say?</h2>
<p>One might be forgiven for thinking that the players were unwitting victims in this saga. They claim to have questioned the supplements regime and believed they were administered thymosin and not the banned thymosin beta-4.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.intjudo.eu/editor_up/up/WADA_Anti-Doping_CODE_2009_EN.pdf">2009 World Anti-Doping Code’s</a> principle of strict liability makes athletes ultimately responsible for what goes into their bodies. It states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is each athlete’s personal duty to ensure that no prohibited substance enters his or her body. Athletes are responsible for any prohibited substance or its metabolites or markers found to be present in their samples. Accordingly, it is not necessary that intent, fault, negligence or knowing use on the athlete’s part be demonstrated in order to establish an anti-doping violation …</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Whether the athletes believed they were receiving thymosin when they were actually receiving the banned thymosin beta-4 is not the question. The mere presence of banned doping agents in the athlete’s system is sufficient for the World Anti-Doping Agency to deem it an infraction. </p>
<p>The code also makes it clear that in exceptional circumstances (for example, proven unintentional doping) the sanction for the rule violation may be reduced or eliminated, but the infraction stands. </p>
<p>Some might think the principle of strict liability is too harsh. But the players unfortunately may be barking up the wrong tree if they think they are innocent victims.</p>
<h2>Players implicated</h2>
<p>The CAS decision disclosed material that further implicated the Essendon players. Despite having undergone anti-doping education programs, the players agreed to injections they knew little about, made no enquiries about them, kept the injections from the team doctor and failed to declare them during routine Australian Sports Anti-Doping Agency (ASADA) testing sessions.</p>
<p>Following the decision, ASADA CEO Ben McDevitt <a href="http://wwos.ninemsn.com.au/2016/01/12/10/00/asada-blasts-dons-for-afl-saga#Ho6gDBjkeJavkkPX.99">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>At best, the players did not ask the questions, or the people, they should have. At worst, they were complicit in a culture of secrecy and concealment.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>On this account, it is one thing for players to have trusted team officials and unwittingly taken a banned substance, but quite another not to have consulted the team doctor or disclosed the supplement use to ASADA. Taking this evidence into account, CAS would appear to have no reason to reduce or eliminate sanctions for the anti-doping rule violation.</p>
<p>One of the take-away messages from the latest stage in the supplements saga is that players will need to be more confident and courageous to challenge the conditions under which they are expected to perform. This could involve collective agreements on the full disclosure of benefits and risks prior to the introduction of cutting-edge performance-enhancement measures and methods.</p>
<p>At the same time, the bar will need to be raised about duty of care and informed consent. Clubs contemplating the implementation of innovative performance-enhancement methods will need to be especially diligent in understanding their performance, health and integrity implications and ensuring that athletes are made fully aware of them.</p>
<p>Team officials and high-performance managers might also need to be aware of the power differential between them and players. This can sometimes compromise a player’s ability to question – let alone say no to – what might be considered dubious performance-enhancement regimes. </p>
<p>All this needs to come in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/money-money-money-is-that-whats-causing-all-that-ails-sport-47550">sport culture</a> where there are high expectations, as well as financial and social pressures and rewards, for playing well and winning.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53097/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dennis Hemphill does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some might think the anti-doping principle of strict liability is too harsh. But the banned Essendon players unfortunately may be barking up the wrong tree if they think they are innocent victims.Dennis Hemphill, Associate Professor of Sport Ethics, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/507412015-11-15T21:35:58Z2015-11-15T21:35:58ZComfortable and satisfied? WADA vs Essendon players at the Court of Arbitration for Sport<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101958/original/image-20151115-10393-h9szts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dave Hunt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This week the <a href="http://www.tas-cas.org/en/index.html">Court of Arbitration for Sport</a> (CAS) meets in Sydney to hear a case by the <a href="https://www.wada-ama.org/">World Anti-Doping Agency</a> (WADA) against 34 past or present Essendon Football Club players. This hearing stems from <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/wada-appeal-a-good-outcome-for-those-who-care-about-clean-sport-20150511-ggzft8">WADA’s appeal</a> against the finding of the AFL’s anti-doping tribunal that it was not <a href="http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Global/Issues/2015/04/01/Leagues-and-Governing-Bodies/Essendon.aspx">“comfortably satisfied”</a> that any of those players violated the sport’s WADA-approved anti-doping code. </p>
<p>In a separate case, the architect of the supplements regime at Essendon, Stephen Dank, has been found guilty of multiple violations of that code, and faces a <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/more-news/stephen-dank-found-guilty-by-antidoping-tribunal--but-not-on-all-charges/news-story/2096468d4fa6f6570bb3440a3c0a3a66">“lifetime ban from all Australian sport”</a>. WADA, although agreeing with that verdict, is concerned that some of the charges against Dank were <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/more-news/stephen-dank-found-guilty-by-antidoping-tribunal--but-not-on-all-charges/news-story/2096468d4fa6f6570bb3440a3c0a3a66">dismissed</a>, and so will <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-02/wada-appealing-afl-anti-doping-tribunal-on-stephen-dank/6514044">appeal</a> to CAS. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Dank himself is <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/stephen-dank-to-appeal-afl-lifetime-ban-20150720-gigc23.html">appealing</a> against the AFL anti-doping tribunal decision. </p>
<p>The two cases – one against players and the other against a sport scientist – are related as a matter of circumstance, though what is relevant by way of charges and evidence is distinctive to each case.</p>
<p>One substance – Thymosin Beta 4 (TB-4) – is at the heart of the case against the Essendon players. TB-4 occurs naturally in the body. One of its attributes is to help with <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/league-news/supplements-demystified-what-it-all-means-20130307-2fome.html">“the repair and regeneration of damaged tissue”</a>. However, supplementation of TB-4 is banned under the WADA Anti-Doping Code. Although it may have the potential to heal injured muscles, it is also presumed to <a href="https://theconversation.com/cronulla-sharks-and-thymosin-beta-4-is-it-doping-12694">enhance performance</a> “artificially”.</p>
<p>WADA’s case against the Essendon players will be heard de novo, meaning that all of the previous evidence, as well as any new information, can be brought to CAS. Sports lawyer Darren Kane argues that the original case against the footballers “fell apart” because it relied inordinately on <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/why-asadas-case-against-essendon-players-fell-apart-20150423-1mrc4l.html">circumstantial evidence</a> that a <a href="http://www.pedestrian.tv/news/sport/the-essendon-doping-transcripts-explained-because-/44dc2109-a953-4961-9e4f-cd5634d126ea.htm">banned substance</a> had been administered. There were no positive drug tests nor sworn testimonies to clinch a case of doping by players.</p>
<p>While it is difficult to predict what WADA will present to CAS, two lines of argument are likely to be at the fore. First, the prosecution will argue that the cumulative weight of circumstantial evidence is strong, whereas the defence will emphasise that the theory of a chain of events – from the purchase of TB-4, its importation to Australia, its distribution to Dank, and its administration to players – <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/why-asadas-case-against-essendon-players-fell-apart-20150423-1mrc4l.html">cannot be sustained</a>. </p>
<p>In lay terms, CAS will be asked to rule whether such events “happened” and, just as importantly, whether they constitute <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/essendon-supplements-scandal-a-difficult-case-for-wada-to-prove-givenlack-of-detail/news-story/a2a0fdfbc4d2f09d0533aaba80790bed">links in a chain</a> that led ultimately to 34 players being injected with TB-4. </p>
<p>There is no dispute that the footballers were injected, but the defence will argue that they were provided with a form of Thymosin (<a href="https://twitter.com/melbchief/status/480826486471938048">Thymomodulin</a>) that is <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/dean-wallis-vial-thymomodulin-photo-casts-doubt-in-asada-case-against-essendon-34/news-story/eda976b3f7a3ceb5abde972dc69ae007">not banned by WADA</a>. </p>
<p>At stake here is a question of legal interpretation. WADA will assert that under the CAS standard of <a href="http://www.asser.nl/SportsLaw/Blog/post/not-comfortably-satisfied-the-upcoming-court-of-arbitration-for-sport-case-of-the-thirty-four-current-and-former-players-of-the-essendon-football-club-by-james-kitching">“comfortable satisfaction”</a>, the circumstantial evidence is sufficient for a guilty verdict. The defence will pick holes in the links said to underpin a causal chain, thereby casting doubt about the adequacy of the prosecution’s overall case.</p>
<p>Second, WADA claims that it has new evidence to bolster its circumstantial case. When the case against the Essendon players was heard by the AFL tribunal in early 2015, the prosecution did not draw upon biological samples from these athletes. However, in August this year WADA reported that it had recently sent frozen urine samples to the world’s leading anti-doping laboratory – in Cologne, Germany – and found <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/wada-finds-abnormally-high-tb4-levels-in-essendon-players-20150805-gisibb.html">“abnormally high amounts of thymosin beta 4”</a> in two of the 27 Essendon players tested between between December 2011 and August 2012. </p>
<p>There are at least a couple of ways of looking at this:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>two players with elevated TB-4 is evidence that a doping program had taken place; or </p></li>
<li><p>if only two players had elevated TB-4, how is this evidence of a club-wide, systematic doping program?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The other point that the defence will keep in mind is uncertainty about how to “read” TB-4 levels, given that it is a naturally occurring substance in the body. Both sides will call <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/afl/tests-results-raise-doubts-about-wada-evidence-against-essendon/story-fnca0u4y-1227608533899">scientists to provide opinions</a> about this. From the players’ perspective, Monash University’s <a href="http://www.med.monash.edu.au/anatomy/staff/boyd.html">Richard Boyd</a> has asserted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you are trying to define whether these players have got elevated levels … you need to have a very good handle on what the levels are in normal people in different stages of life and different stages of physiology. Things can change from the morning to the night, with tiredness, with exercise. It is a complex system.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Boyd might have added that variations of biological markers are, in fact, integral to WADA’s innovative <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&ved=0CEYQFjAGahUKEwjWnuuDpZPJAhXhJaYKHU8-CAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.antidoping.dk%2F%7E%2Fmedia%2FAntiDopingDK%2FFiler%2FForskning%2FADD_forskningsseminar%2F5%20ADDforskningsseminar%20%20PierreEdouard%20Sottas.pdf&usg=AFQjCNHlc3wESHmJO3cwsDNuj60zjn3LOA&sig2=9bmUsbn38U5P68swXMr7KQ">Athlete Biological Passport system</a>, which was implemented in 2009. Under this program, when athletes are tested – whether by blood or urine – the sample is not simply analysed for banned substances, it is also recorded as information about an individual’s <a href="https://www.wada-ama.org/en/what-we-do/science-medical/athlete-biological-passport">“biological profile”</a>.</p>
<p>The assumption is that if, over time, there are variations in certain biological markers, then anti-doping authorities will seek to target test those under “suspicion” with the aim of either proving or discounting doping. </p>
<p>It is unclear whether WADA has cumulative information about the biological passport status of the Essendon players in the 2011-12 period. Even so, that data hardly amounts to evidence of doping. There is no suggestion that Essendon footballers have since tested positive to TB-4.</p>
<p>Richard Ings, the ex-CEO of ASADA, famously described February 7 as <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/this-is-the-blackest-day-in-australian-sport-20130207-2e1i3.html">“the blackest day in Australian sport”</a>. This was the occasion when the federal government, several of the nation’s leading sports, together with ASADA and the Australian Crime Commission, came to grips with allegations of suspected doping and use of illicit drugs in sport. Essendon, alongside the NRL’s Cronulla, became the focus of ASADA’s attention. </p>
<p>The Cronulla players accepted what Ings described as <a href="https://twitter.com/ringsau/status/512221407015870464">“a sweetheart deal”</a> – a three-week ban in the pre-season. The Essendon footballers refused to bargain, instead committing to a long-haul defence of their reputations. Whether the wait was “worth it” will depend, in large part, on the CAS verdict in Sydney.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50741/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
This week the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) meets in Sydney to hear a case by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) against 34 past or present Essendon Football Club players. This hearing stems from…Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/395862015-04-01T01:21:59Z2015-04-01T01:21:59ZASADA vs Essendon: through the haze and fog, now what?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76688/original/image-20150331-1253-14slbf6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thirty-four current and former Essendon players have been cleared of taking a banned substance during the club's supplements program.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Joe Castro</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>After a two-year Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) investigation, the AFL’s anti-doping tribunal <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-31/essendon-supplements-afl-anti-doping-tribunal-decision/6361006">ruled unanimously</a> on Tuesday that banned substance thymosin beta-4 was not proven to have been administered to 34 Essendon Football Club players in 2011-12. ASADA, which led the investigation and charged the players, has <a href="https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/sport/afl/a/26881716/asada-still-considering-bombers-appeal/">not yet announced</a> whether it will appeal the tribunal’s decision. It has 21 days to do so.</p>
<p>And with that, the so-called <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/this-is-the-blackest-day-in-australian-sport-20130207-2e1i3.html">“blackest day”</a> in Australian sport – February 7, 2013 – can now instead be described as the precursor to its foggiest period. It began when then-Gillard government ministers Jason Clare and Kate Lundy – along with the heads of Australia’s major sporting organisations – presented to the media an Australian Crime Commission (ACC) report, <a href="https://www.crimecommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/organised-crime-and-drugs-in-sports-feb2013.pdf">Organised Crime and Drugs in Sport</a>. Clare <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3685762.htm">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The findings are shocking and they’ll disgust Australian sports fans. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Unredacted copies were passed onto police. Two years later, the public still awaits the arrests of organised crime figures associated with that investigation. In that respect the fog remains. But what are we to make of the anti-doping ruling on the Essendon players? </p>
<h2>What about ASADA’s credibility?</h2>
<p>ASADA CEO Ben McDevitt was unimpressed with the AFL tribunal’s decision. He <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-31/essendon-supplements-afl-anti-doping-tribunal-decision/6361006">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What happened at Essendon in 2012 was … absolutely and utterly disgraceful. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Rather than cop the decision sweet, McDevitt harked back to Essendon’s governance failings, for which the club had already received <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/hird-and-his-club-pay-highest-of-prices-20130827-2so59.html">significant penalties</a> back in 2013 – including the suspension of coach James Hird, a A$2 million fine, the loss of draft picks and expulsion from that year’s finals series. </p>
<p>ASADA can challenge the verdict at the AFL Appeals Tribunal and ultimately the Court of Arbitration for Sport. But if it does so, ASADA will be unlikely to find support in the court of public opinion. After two years of fog, footy fans, clubs and players are yearning for blue sky. They now better understand the World Anti-Doping Authority (WADA) and its requirements. They want to move forward.</p>
<h2>What about athletes and their entourage?</h2>
<p>Footballers put trust in their employers to provide a safe working environment. Athletes therefore need to have faith in those at the club who provide substances and treatments for nutritional, medical and performance purposes. Responding to the tribunal’s decision, Essendon captain Jobe Watson <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/essendon-verdict-jobe-watson-says-players-feel-vindicated-and-ready-to-move-on-20150331-1mc8ap.html">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When you go to your employer and they can’t tell you exactly what went on, that’s concerning. And I think the players are well within their rights to feel anger about that.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A footballer is in no position to refuse a drink from a trainer and ask for the contents to be independently tested. Yet this is what WADA’s <a href="https://www.wada-ama.org/en/questions-answers/strict-liability-in-anti-doping">strict liability</a> principle infers: anything that ends up in the body of an athlete is their responsibility. </p>
<p>In Essendon’s case, players were hoping – rather than being certain – that the substances they were provided adhered to what they <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/signed-forms-may-save-essendon-players-involved-in-drugs-investigation/story-e6frf9jf-1226583062920">signed</a> to accept, and all was consistent with the <a href="https://www.wada-ama.org/en/what-we-do/the-code">WADA code</a>.</p>
<h2>What about governance?</h2>
<p>Stephen Dank masterminded Essendon’s program. Dank, though <a href="http://www.sportal.com.au/afl/news/dank-no-sports-scientist/186ww1ddgccz41rlcap5w4xdux">not recognised</a> by Exercise and Sports Science Australia as an accredited sport scientist, orchestrated a <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/news/sports-scientist-stephen-dank-to-sue-media-organisations-over-drug-claims/story-fncagcd8-1226575238286">“cutting-edge”</a> high-performance regime. Essendon was penalised and ultimately accepted abject failure in its responsibility to adequately supervise and monitor the day-to-day operation of its sport science program.</p>
<p>This was not an admission that doping took place. Rather, Essendon acknowledged that it was unable to categorically state what supplements were administered to each player. </p>
<p>The fog in this respect is now lifting. There have been reforms in sport science personnel management and in the operation and record-keeping of Essendon’s football department. The AFL has also <a href="http://www.afl.com.au/news/2014-02-06/afl-appoints-integrity-investigator">added</a> layers of health and safety compliance, such as: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>No substance is to be administered to any player by injection other than by an appropriately qualified medical practitioner and only to the extent it is necessary to treat a legitimate medical condition.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet only one AFL club, Port Adelaide, has insisted that all of its <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/port-adelaide-sets-benchmark-for-sports-science-peak-body-essa-says-20141015-116axn.html">sport science staff</a> be accredited with ESSA, which is the peak body for this profession, and operates under a code of ethics under which breaches result in disciplinary procedures.</p>
<h2>What about drugs in Australian sport?</h2>
<p>Looking specifically at the AFL, Ahmed Saad served an <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/ahmed-saad-given-18month-suspension-20131126-2y877.html">18 month-ban</a> after consuming a protein drink that included a stimulant banned in competition. Ryan Crowley is <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/fremantle-dockers-ryan-crowley-tests-positive-to-banned-substance-20150316-1m08nb.html">facing suspension</a> after testing positive to a substance banned in competition that he claims was contained in a painkiller. And very recently, Lachlan Keeffe and Josh Thomas have <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/collingwood-footballers-lachlan-keeffe-and-josh-thomas-face-positive-drug-test-20150330-1maznj.html">tested positive</a> to the performance-enhancing substance clenbuterol. </p>
<p>The first two cases appear to be inadvertent positives – negligence rather than deception. The second case has mirrors the world over in sports like athletics and cycling – the assumption is deception rather than negligence.</p>
<p>The management of risk and the health and well-being of players remains an ongoing challenge in elite sport. The AFL – Australia’s best-resourced sporting organisation – needs to restore public faith in its governance systems and processes. While Essendon players were cleared of doping, they were unimpressed about being accused of cheating after putting trust in their employer.</p>
<p>ASADA also has a big task to win back public confidence. Its processes are unwieldy, and a Senate inquiry into its operation has been <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/push-for-senate-inquiry-into-asadas-essendon-supplements-probe/story-fni0fiyv-1227285412698">mooted</a>. Maybe that will help to lift the fog on anti-doping in Australia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39586/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daryl Adair does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The so-called “blackest day” in Australian sport can now instead be described as the precursor to its foggiest period, following the exoneration of 34 Essendon players from taking a banned drug.Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/380442015-03-05T02:15:34Z2015-03-05T02:15:34ZSports stars do take drugs – but not as much as the rest of us<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73780/original/image-20150304-15294-7d8c7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An Australian study found certain elite athletes were more at risk of taking drugs than others.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lee Morley/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There’s a widespread public perception that substance use is rife among Australian athletes. Whenever I tell people I research substance use among athletes, the most common response is: “They’re all on it.”</p>
<p>But that perception is not backed up by the facts. Amid the headlines about <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/rugby-union/karmichael-hunt-faces-cocaine-charges/story-e6frg7o6-1227248893670">cocaine in football</a>, it’s worth looking at what research has revealed about drugs and elite athletes in Australian and overseas.</p>
<h2>What the official drug testers have found</h2>
<p>The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Agency (<a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/asada">ASADA</a>) is responsible for drug testing athletes and publicly publishes anti-doping rule violations. </p>
<p>For 2013-2014, ASADA <a href="http://www.asada.gov.au/publications/annual_reports/asada_annual_report_2013_14/chapter_9.html#b">conducted</a> 6,540 tests, 2,215 of them in-competition.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.asada.gov.au/publications/annual_reports/asada_annual_report_2013_14/chapter_9.html#b">ASADA’s figures show</a> that there were a range of offences in a range of sports related to a range of substances. Of the 20 cases that had been concluded, nine came from the stimulants category – though none of those were cocaine.</p>
<p>A few years ago I looked at all the ASADA reports from 2000/01 to 2011/12 to try to work out roughly what athletes were being caught using. </p>
<p>Collating the data suggested that substances falling into the anabolic agents category represented the highest number of anti-doping rule violations, with fluctuations across the years. </p>
<p>This isn’t a precise measure, and there are a number of reasons for this finding. For instance, targeted testing or law enforcement operations may influence who is tested and when. </p>
<p>Cocaine is banned in-competition only, unlike the anabolic agents that are banned both in- and out-of-competition. The drug testers clearly have more chance of catching people using substances that are banned at all times, rather than just on game day. </p>
<p>So if you relied solely on the official drug-testing data, then you might think Australian athletes don’t use cocaine at all. </p>
<p>But let’s not be naïve. </p>
<p>Many of us have heard the stories about the lengths athletes go to beat the system. For instance, we hear about athletes timing their substance use so that it has cleared their body on match day. We know of athletes who have admitted to substance use, yet who never provided a positive sample.</p>
<p>While the official statistics don’t tell us much about cocaine use, overseas research has long indicated that there is more to the story. </p>
<h2>Drugs use among top English footballers</h2>
<p>A decade ago, researchers got the support of the Professional Footballers’ Association to investigate drug use in English professional football (soccer), including what legal vitamin and minerals the players used, who they asked advice for before trying supplements, and what they knew about banned performance-enhancing and recreational drug use in the sport.</p>
<p>Reply-paid questionnaires were sent to all the players’ homes, and nearly 25% of them (706) came back. Recreational drug use proved to be widespread: 45% of the respondents indicated that they knew another player who used recreational drugs, versus just 6% who knew other players who used performance-enhancing drugs.</p>
<p>But until a few years ago, there were no comparable surveys like that here in Australia.</p>
<h2>Cocaine and other drugs in Australian sport</h2>
<p>Our study of recreational drug use among elite athletes was published in the international journal <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306460311002930">Addictive Behaviours</a> in 2012. It was the first of its kind in Australia, and was funded by the Australian government’s Department of Health and Ageing.</p>
<p>Our study involved athletes who were eligible for state or national selection from 18 national sporting organisations, including the National Rugby League, Australian Rugby Union, Athletics Australia, Hockey Australia, Netball Australia, Weightlifting Australia and the Australian Institute of Sport.</p>
<p>Between July 2008 to April 2010, we compiled 1,684 confidential, anonymous responses from elite athletes, who answered questions on whether they had used any of six illicit drugs: ecstasy, cannabis, cocaine, meth/amphetamine, ketamine and GHB. </p>
<p>Overall, we found that <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306460311002930">8%</a>, or 134 out of 1,684 athletes, said that they had used at least one of those six drugs in the past year.</p>
<p>Our <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21219499">preliminary data</a> from 974 athletes showed that 6.7% had used cocaine at least once in their lifetime, and 3.3% had used at least once in the previous year. </p>
<p>Of the 158 athletes who felt there was a drug of concern in their sport, cocaine ranked third, with 66 athletes believing this was a drug of concern in their sport. The other two major drugs they mentioned were ecstasy and alcohol.</p>
<p>We also compared substance use among the athletes in our survey aged 20-29 years (which is considered the “at-risk” group) with drug use in the same age group among the wider Australian population, using the 2007 <a href="http://www.aihw.gov.au/alcohol-and-other-drugs/ndshs/">National Drug Strategy Household Survey</a> results.</p>
<p>We found that 6.7% of athletes we surveyed had used cocaine at some point in their life, compared to 11.9% of the wider Australian population.</p>
<p>That gap narrowed when you asked about whether people had used drugs in the past year: among our group of 20-29 year olds, 4% said yes, compared to 5.1% of people the same age in the general population.</p>
<p>The obvious limitation to our study was that we had to rely on people telling the truth about their drug use. But those general population figures from the National Drug Strategy Household Survey rely on <a href="http://www.aihw.gov.au/alcohol-and-other-drugs/ndshs/2013/data-and-references/">self-reporting</a> too, so it is reasonable to compare the two.</p>
<h2>Who is mostly likely to use drugs?</h2>
<p>Our study found the strongest predictors of an elite athlete using any illicit drug in the past year were:</p>
<ul>
<li>being male</li>
<li>having been offered or had the opportunity to use illicit drugs</li>
<li>knowing other athletes who use illicit drugs</li>
<li>and identifying as a full-time athlete.</li>
</ul>
<p>Interestingly, having completed secondary or post-school qualifications reduced the likelihood of using illicit drugs.</p>
<p>While those findings might seem a bit obvious, they do provide some food for thought about which of our athletes are most at risk.</p>
<p>If you’re a full-time male athlete, who knows other athletes using drugs and you have the opportunity to use drugs, then you’re at a greater risk. </p>
<p>Many of the sporting codes in Australia where athletes make good money have implemented welfare programs designed to keep their athletes as occupied as possible when they’re not competing. Giving them a purpose other than just competing in their sport makes them a well-rounded person and helps them transition to life after sport. </p>
<p>We also need to remember that not all our athletes are drowning in money. Many elite athletes work two jobs, or have family and study commitments. And most don’t earn the money to be regularly buying drugs like cocaine, which costs between <a href="https://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/resource/key-findings-2014-edrs-drug-trends-conference-handout">A$300</a> and <a href="https://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/resource/key-findings-2014-idrs-drug-trends-conference-handout">A$350</a> per gram, depending on where you live. </p>
<p>I don’t think the latest allegations about some footballers means we should assume cocaine use is rife in sport. Equally, we shouldn’t kid ourselves that some elite athletes won’t use cocaine sometimes, along with other drugs.</p>
<p>It’s important to keep things in perspective. </p>
<p>Yes, some sporting stars do take drugs; they have told us as much. But contrary to many people’s assumptions, the evidence indicates that our elite athletes are not “on it” as much as other Australians.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38044/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Dunn received funding from the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing to conduct a study into recreational substance use among elite athletes. </span></em></p>Our study found that 8% of the 1,684 elite Australian athletes we surveyed said they had used at least one of six illicit drugs – including ecstasy, cocaine and cocaine – over the previous year.Matthew Dunn, Senior Lecturer in Public Health, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/379772015-03-04T01:09:03Z2015-03-04T01:09:03ZIllicit drugs: Australian sports intervene while WADA spectates<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73388/original/image-20150302-16179-es42ll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gold Coast Titan Greg Bird could face action by WADA on top of court charges stemming from drug supply allegations.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dave Hunt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Allegations of <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-27/two-more-charged-in-gold-coast-drugs-scandal/6270170">cocaine supply</a> by rugby union and league players at Queensland clubs have stimulated public debate about the <a href="https://theconversation.com/being-great-at-sport-does-not-come-with-good-moral-judgement-37976">off-field expectations of athletes</a> and the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/union-news/public-hysteria-betrays-irrational-view-of-drugs-20150221-13l8fq.html">responsibilities of sporting bodies</a> to monitor this. </p>
<p>In this debate, what seems least understood is the contrast between illicit drug policy in Australian sport and that of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). While all of these stakeholders are interested in the health and well-being of athletes, they diverge in terms of <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1441352311000192">drug detection and treatment</a>.</p>
<p>In recent years, professional athletes have been subject to testing for illicit substances, though the rationale for doing so is unique to sport. Organisations like the Australian Institute of Sport, the Australian Rugby Union, the National Rugby League and the Australian Football League pay for testing independent of WADA, and with broadly similar aims:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Risk management: athletes who use narcotics out of competition are at risk of a four-year WADA ban should such substances be detected in competition.</p></li>
<li><p>Brand management: negative publicity associated with players using illicit substances compromises the reputation of a club and a sport.</p></li>
<li><p>Player management: possession of illicit drugs is against the law; use (or supply) can therefore be treated as a crime.</p></li>
<li><p>Health management: there are health risks associated with the use of narcotics; sports that test for these substances argue that they have a holistic duty of care to ensure the well-being of their athlete employees.</p></li>
<li><p>Rehabilitation management: if athletes test positive to narcotics out of competition they are treated under a medical model that emphasises behavioural change under the supervision of addiction experts. Each sport has a number of confidential “strikes”, allowing players some opportunity to alter their conduct. If not, they are suspended. Ultimately they can be dismissed.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>These interventions have been driven by individual sports, not WADA, which only tests for narcotics in competition where it regards them as performance-enhancing substances. Although WADA requires out-of-competition testing of athletes, the list of drugs it seeks to detect are the classical “performance boosters”, such as steroids, EPO and blood doping. </p>
<p>From this perspective, narcotics have no cumulative value out of competition in terms of performance-enhancing attributes. However, while WADA has no policy interest in the use of illicit drugs by athletes out of competition, it will prosecute any sportsperson it deems to have supplied a narcotic as an anti-doping violation. This is intriguing to say the least.</p>
<p>In 2010, the playing future of Geelong AFL player <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/geelong-cats-ban-mathew-stokes-until-round-8/story-e6frf9jf-1225827930171">Mathew Stokes</a> was in the balance. Police had charged him with trafficking cocaine. The severity of this allegation was later dropped to use, largely because the amount in question was one gram. In court, Stokes received a 12-month good behaviour bond, while the AFL sidelined its employee for seven weeks and fined him A$5000. </p>
<p>Stokes has learnt from his conduct and <a href="http://www.news.com.au/sport/afl/geelong-midfielder-mathew-stokes-has-matured-as-a-footballer-and-a-person-since-2010-drug-arrest/story-fndv8haf-1226904315494">rebuilt</a> his life and career. Imagine, though, if he had been found guilty in court of trafficking?</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73419/original/image-20150302-5274-1xqj7e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73419/original/image-20150302-5274-1xqj7e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=880&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73419/original/image-20150302-5274-1xqj7e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=880&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73419/original/image-20150302-5274-1xqj7e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=880&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73419/original/image-20150302-5274-1xqj7e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1106&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73419/original/image-20150302-5274-1xqj7e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1106&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73419/original/image-20150302-5274-1xqj7e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1106&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Geelong AFL player Mathew Stokes escaped WADA sanction over drug charges.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Joe Castro</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is obviously a much more serious criminal matter. But it is also where WADA takes an interest. Although WADA does not test for narcotics out of competition, and is therefore not part of any process to militate against their use, it sees itself as an authority in terms of penalising what it regards as supply of illicit substances out of competition.</p>
<p>Just as intriguing, in legal terms WADA operates under a lower standard of evidence than courts of law. If we assume that those athletes charged in Queensland are found by the court to have used, rather than trafficked, a narcotic, the standard is “beyond reasonable doubt”. </p>
<p>WADA has the capacity to view the same case in a different light: this is because the burden of proof it works with is <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/UNDAULawRw/2012/2.pdf">“comfortable satisfaction”</a>. This means that even if a court of law decided that the athletes were only guilty of use, WADA – and sport’s peak legal body, the Court of Arbitration for Sport – could deem that the players were <a href="https://twitter.com/ringsau/status/570521548391493632">guilty of supply</a>, and therefore ban them from sport for four years under the WADA code. </p>
<p>WADA is overwhelmingly a mere spectator when it comes to sports trying to militate against athletes’ use of narcotics out of competition. But it nonetheless looks on from the sidelines in case there is an opportunity to punish offenders.</p>
<p>It is ironic that sports that do test for illicit substances out of competition are often demonised by the public for “not doing enough” to prevent the use of narcotics by athletes. Perhaps that gaze ought to be <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211266913000315">directed at WADA</a>. While WADA has the “health of athletes” as one of its mantras, it is doing nothing to assist sports that are trying – and sometimes failing – to help their employees avoid narcotics or change their behaviour. </p>
<p>Testing for all banned substances in and out of competition sounds expensive. Yet according to <a href="https://twitter.com/ringsau/status/569650943978897408">ex-ASADA CEO Richard Ings</a>, it could be done easily – and more cheaply – than the existing system of WADA and sports testing separately. While any such move would need the support of athletes, it is a debate well worth having.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37977/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daryl Adair does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The World Anti-Doping Authority looks on from the sidelines in case there is an opportunity to punish athletes’ involvement with illicit drugs out of competition.Daryl Adair, Associate Professor of Sport Management, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/319522014-09-22T03:53:30Z2014-09-22T03:53:30ZASADA v Essendon: next steps for the winners and losers<p>Federal Court Justice John Middleton’s <a href="http://www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/single/2014/2014fca1019">decision</a> to uphold the legality of the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) investigation into the potential use of banned substances at the Essendon Football Club raises as many questions as its answers.</p>
<p>The “winners” (ASADA and, to a lesser extent, the AFL) are likely to come under pressure to resolve the matter quickly; the “losers” (Essendon and coach James Hird) will be assessing whether to appeal; and the “biggest losers”, the players, will be wondering what to do now.</p>
<p>The Federal Court decision might also nudge Victoria’s workplace health and safety regulator – the Victorian WorkCover Authority (VWA, formerly known as WorkSafe Victoria) – to investigate Essendon Football Club’s failure to protect the health and safety of its players. </p>
<h2>ASADA</h2>
<p>ASADA is the clear winner. Not only did Justice Middleton uphold the legality of its investigation, he interpreted ASADA’s enabling legislation broadly and strongly supported ASADA adopting “innovative processes and methods of investigation”. </p>
<p>First, Justice Middleton found ASADA had power “to do all things necessary or convenient” in connection with its investigation, including cooperating with sporting administration bodies such as the AFL. </p>
<p>Second, Justice Middleton found ASADA’s disclosure of information to sporting administration bodies was within ASADA’s powers if done for the purposes of, or in connection with, an ongoing investigation. </p>
<p>Justice Middleton found ASADA’s disclosure of its interim report to the AFL satisfied both these criteria: it was done to obtain comments from the AFL to inform its continuing investigation; and to assist the AFL’s investigation of Essendon’s internal governance concerning anti-doping matters, something closely connected with the ASADA investigation. </p>
<p>It is important to keep in mind the court case was about whether ASADA’s investigation was conducted in accordance with the law; it was not about whether that investigation has reached the right conclusions. Whether or not Essendon players took banned substances remains to be proven. </p>
<p>ASADA <a href="http://www.asada.gov.au/media/organised_crime_and_drugs_in_sport.html">responded</a> to the Federal Court decision by reiterating its determination to expose what happened at the Essendon Football Club. </p>
<p>But ASADA can also be expected to come under pressure to resolve the matter quickly, possibly by sanctioning a settlement similar to that reached with National Rugby League (NRL) Cronulla Rugby League Club players, whose backdated suspensions resulted in them missing only a handful of games. ASADA described the <a href="http://www.asada.gov.au/media/organised_crime_and_drugs_in_sport.html">NRL settlement</a> as a “good result for sport”.</p>
<h2>AFL</h2>
<p>The AFL was not part of the court action. Nevertheless, Justice Middleton’s decision is a vindication of its joint investigation with ASADA. This may prove to be a pyrrhic victory, however, as the AFL now faces the prospect of another compromised season should Essendon players be suspended. </p>
<p>The AFL, too, can be expected to come under pressure to resolve this matter quickly. An NRL-style settlement that minimises the games players miss clearly is in its interests.</p>
<h2>Essendon Football Club and James Hird</h2>
<p>The immediate issue the Essendon Football Club and James Hird face is whether to appeal Justice Middleton’s decision. Both will have their QCs pore over every word. If there are grounds for appeal, they will find them – although Justice Middleton has been very thorough in his analysis of the facts, and of the application of the law to those facts. There are no obvious errors in his 123-page decision.</p>
<p>If they do not appeal, both Essendon and Hird face legal bills that will run into many hundreds of thousands of dollars. They also face the prospect of not being able to field a team next year.</p>
<p>Equally concerning is the risk of more legal action being brought against them. Potentially the most damming finding in Justice Middleton’s decision was his assessment, based on the evidence before him, that poor governance and management practices at Essendon contributed to possible systemic anti-doping violations by Essendon players. </p>
<p>In highlighting this connection, Justice Middleton strengthens the case that Essendon and its officers may have breached their duty to provide players with a safe and healthy work environment. This is something that should interest both players and workplace health and safety regulators.</p>
<h2>Players</h2>
<p>The Essendon players are the biggest losers, even though were not party to the case. Unless there is an appeal, they will now have to respond to ASADA’s <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/asada-showcause-notices-for-dons-20140612-zs64d.html">show-cause notices</a> and face the prospect of being suspended for up to two years.</p>
<p>But the players <em>do</em> have choices. Do they continue their alliance with the Club or seek their own path – legally and/or professionally? </p>
<p>Do they seek an NRL-style deal, or keep faith with Club management that continues to argue there is no evidence they have taken banned substances? </p>
<p>Do they look to the contractual clauses that provide them with redress in the event the Club has breached duties they owe them? And should they sue the Club for breach of those duties – a course already taken by <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/league-news/third-player-joins-lawsuit-against-sharks-20140205-3223i.html">some of their NRL colleagues</a>? </p>
<p>The complexity of these choices is matched only by the implications for the players of getting them wrong.</p>
<h2>VWA</h2>
<p>The VWA remains the “wild card” in the pack. Originally <a href="https://theconversation.com/time-for-ohs-regulators-to-get-off-the-bench-and-into-the-game-17039">reluctant to be involved</a>, the VWA’s hand has been forced by three requests it has received from members of the public for it to investigate the Essendon Football Club, other Victorian AFL clubs, and the AFL itself. Under its legislation, the VWA is required to investigate the matters and advise within three months <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/consol_act/ohasa2004273/s131.html">whether it will prosecute</a>. </p>
<p>The VWA is <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/workcover-health-and-safety-probe-into-afl-clubs-on-hold-20140830-10aeup.html">reported</a> to have been waiting for the outcome of the Federal Court case. Justice Middleton’s comments about Essendon’s poor governance and management practices reinforce the case for it to fully investigate the matter.</p>
<p>The VWA recently was criticised by the Hazelwood Mine Fire Inquiry for adopting a narrow reading of its statutory responsibilities, and for the passivity which it <a href="http://report.hazelwoodinquiry.vic.gov.au">discharged those responsibilities</a>. Failure to act on the Essendon supplements saga runs the risk the VWA will again be seen as failing to discharge its role as the state’s health and safety regulator.</p>
<p>Justice Middleton’s decision is far from the end of the Essendon supplements saga. All actors in the saga have important decisions to make. The next days, weeks and months may be as interesting as those just passed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31952/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eric Windholz worked with the Victorian WorkCover Authority from 2001 to 2009, including as General Counsel and General Manager, Strategic Programs and Support.</span></em></p>Federal Court Justice John Middleton’s decision to uphold the legality of the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) investigation into the potential use of banned substances at the Essendon Football…Eric Windholz, Lecturer in Law and Associate, Monash Centre for Commercial Law and Regulatory Studies, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/266242014-05-30T03:12:48Z2014-05-30T03:12:48ZWhat happens if Essendon players are issued ‘show cause’ notices?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49090/original/ktpgx369-1400648071.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Will Essendon players face sanction if it is proven that they took banned substances during the 2012 AFL season?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Joe Castro</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Speculation <a href="https://au.sports.yahoo.com/afl/news/article/-/23437023/asada-investigation-cronulla-essendon-players-to-receive-notices-this-week-report/">continues to mount</a> that Essendon Football Club players will face sanctions from the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) over the club’s controversial 2011-12 supplements program. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.3aw.com.au/blogs/neil-mitchell-blog/bye-bye-gomez-andrew-demetrious-surprise-farewell/20140530-398n3.html">Speaking on radio this morning</a>, outgoing AFL boss Andrew Demetriou said the final outcome from ASADA may be imminent:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They’ve indicated that they’re probably a couple of weeks, a month at most [away from] coming to the AFL with anything further.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But how did we get here, and where to next?</p>
<h2>What might happen next?</h2>
<p>ASADA was obliged to act a result of concerns that Essendon players had been administered banned substances. Under its <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/asaaa2006455/">legislated powers</a>, ASADA has a process to follow in managing these allegations where it is suspected the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) <a href="http://www.wada-ama.org/Documents/World_Anti-Doping_Program/WADP-The-Code/WADA_Anti-Doping_CODE_2009_EN.pdf">code</a>, which ASADA is charged to implement in Australia, has been breached.</p>
<p>This process demands that ASADA first issue “show cause” notices. These ask potential offenders to explain why they should not be served with infraction notices over alleged breaches of the WADA code. </p>
<p>If the explanations are deemed to be unsatisfactory then ASADA will prepare dossiers for each person that might have committed violations. These dossiers will be submitted to its <a href="http://asada.gov.au/publications/annual_reports/asada_annual_report_2011_12/chapter_7.html">Anti-Doping Rule Violation Panel</a> (ADRVP), an independent group of experts who will assess the dossiers, together with additional information provided by the offending players and officials.</p>
<p>If the ADRVP believes there is a case to answer – which, in Essendon’s case, <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/essendon-support-staff-could-be-handed-showcause-notices-from-asada-as-probe-thickens/story-fni5f6kv-1226917952251">may involve club officials</a> as well as players – it will signal that an “infraction notice” will be issued by ASADA. </p>
<p>The ADRVP will deliver two recommendations. The first is whether to enter the offender’s details on a Register of Findings, which is a signal to ASADA that a rule violation has been committed. The second is whether to recommend a sanction, which can be anything from a six-month to two-year suspension from their sport for use of banned substances.</p>
<p>The AFL, on behalf of ASADA, issues the infraction notice. In line with the AFL’s <a href="http://old.aflpa.com.au/images/uploads/2010_Anti-Doping_Code_1.pdf">anti-doping code</a>, the notice is dealt with by another panel – or tribunal, as the AFL will most likely call it. If an infraction notice was issued, the player would be immediately suspended pending the final outcome. The AFL’s panel will use the ADRVP’s recommendations as a guide, but remains the arbiter on what penalties and suspensions will be applied.</p>
<h2>Chances of appeal</h2>
<p>Appeals against ASADA decisions have been made from time to time. Essendon has <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/essendon-players-could-launch-legal-action-in-bid-to-end-longrunning-supplements-investigations/story-fni5f6kv-1226926208162">already foreshadowed</a> that the club is in for the long (legal) haul, even before any show-cause notices have been issued.</p>
<p>The lengthy delays in the investigation process, together with the relentless spreading of rumours and hearsay, provide an opportunity for challenging the ASADA decision in the Federal Court on the grounds that there was a massive “abuse of process”. This could be used to apply for a “permanent stay”, which, if upheld, could mean the whole case against Essendon players unravels, resulting in it being comprehensively dismissed. The players could also appeal any sanctions to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.</p>
<p>ASADA could also appeal the AFL tribunal’s decision, as it did (<a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/ahmed-saad-eyes-2015-afl-return-as-asada-loses-ban-appeal-20140528-zrr2o.html">unsuccessfully</a>) in the case of suspended St Kilda footballer Ahmed Saad in a bid to increase his suspension from 18 months to two years.</p>
<p>Mass two-year suspensions would destroy the whole organisational fabric of Essendon in one clean swoop. </p>
<p>Essendon players are, under the WADA code, wholly responsible for avoiding the use of banned substances, no matter what advice they were given by officials, coaches, physicians, sports scientists, trainers, conditioners and the like. They also cannot get away with claiming that a product was improperly labelled, and that as a result they used substances inadvertently. </p>
<p>It is a case of player beware. These are the rules.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26624/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bob Stewart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Speculation continues to mount that Essendon Football Club players will face sanctions from the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) over the club’s controversial 2011-12 supplements program…Bob Stewart, Associate Professor in the School of Sport and Exercise Science, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/168012013-08-14T02:59:57Z2013-08-14T02:59:57ZEssendon charged with bringing the game into disrepute: a history of footy scandals<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29213/original/nhrvr27b-1376446835.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Essendon drugs saga is but the latest in a long history of scandals for Australian rules football.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Julian Smith</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As I write, the front pages of Melbourne’s newspapers this morning <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/essendon-to-vigorously-defend-afl-charges-20130813-2rudp.html">scream in chorus</a>: Charged: Bombers Drug Scandal. But is this really the worst “scandal” in footy history?</p>
<p>My first lesson in football scandals came early. We shared a house in inner Melbourne with an ex-VFL player. Let’s call him Sam. And let’s not judge him. He worked as a wharfie. Football and running were his tickets to modest prosperity and he knew when to play dead to help the bookies.</p>
<p>Sam was part of a subculture in Australian football in the late 1910s and early 1920s. He and five other players were cleaned out by a new coach, and his club then played better for it.</p>
<p>Sam’s case raises the question of how we ought to govern this wonderful game of ours, a game that gives hope and joy to people year in, year out.</p>
<p>Is the Essendon doping scandal the worst we have seen? Commentators have made their lists of previous scandals. North Melbourne captain Wayne Carey’s <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/05/02/1051876867284.html">affair</a> with the wife of his team’s vice-captain. Carlton and Brisbane player Brendon Fevola’s string of <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/brendan-fevola-caught-at-crown-casino-20110310-1bpdb.html">indiscretions</a> (Fevola means “fairytale” in Italian, so the warning was there for all to see). The always controversial Jason Akermanis’ <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/stay-in-the-closet-jason-akermanis-tells-homosexuals/story-e6frf9ix-1225868871934">comments on homosexuals</a>. Racist <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/rules-of-the-game-no-place-for-racism-in-todays-afl-20110627-1gnmi.html">taunts</a> from several players.</p>
<p>But these are cases of individual players taking their transgressive behaviours, so useful on the footy field, out into public places where the damage was done.</p>
<p>A genuine scandal is a collective contrivance by a group of officials, players and others to win an unfair advantage.</p>
<h2>Scandal #1: Payments to players, from 1897</h2>
<p>The AFL’s predecessor body, the VFL, itself began life in what the football administrators of the day thought was scandalous behaviour: paying players.</p>
<p>The year was 1896. The eastern colonies of Australia were in an economic recession. Across the western world there was a contest between amateur and professional sports bodies. The modern Olympic Games were begun that year as a display of amateur sporting prowess.</p>
<p>Several Victorian football clubs decided to break away from the ostensibly amateur league, the Victorian Football Association (VFA), in defiance of its chief, T.S. Marshall. Marshall, headmaster of one of Melbourne’s prestigious elite boys’ schools, always argued that payments to players would destroy the gentlemanly quality of the game.</p>
<p>The governance problem here was that power lay not with the football leagues, but with the cricket clubs who owned the grounds on which they played and drew on the football crowds for their revenue.</p>
<h2>Scandal #2: Boycotting a finals match, 1904</h2>
<p>One of the remnant clubs that continued in the VFA, Richmond (which would join the professional league a few seasons later), refused to play in a finals match against North Melbourne. Some say this was because they did not trust a particular umpire; others because North Melbourne and its fans were extremely violent.</p>
<p>Whatever Richmond’s motivation, this refusal impeded the efforts of the VFA to create a viable finals system at the end of the regular season. With no such club boycotts, the VFL went on to build what has become their marquee event, the September finals.</p>
<p>The governance problem here was the existence of two competing football leagues with quite different business models.</p>
<h2>Scandal #3: Playing ‘dead’, 1919-1924</h2>
<p>My friend Sam was not alone. The 1922 VFA Grand Final was marred by allegations of bribes paid by Footscray’s ex-player Vernon Banbury to members of the Port Melbourne side. Banbury was disqualified for life by the VFA. Footscray retaliated by making him a life member of their club.</p>
<p>Two seasons later there was a celebrated match between the two winning sides of the rival leagues, Footscray from the VFA and Essendon from the VFL. Essendon, the “Same Olds” were accused of playing dead to cause an upset win for the “Tricolours” of Footscray. Within a season, Footscray had switched over from the VFA to the VFL (with Hawthorn and North Melbourne).</p>
<p>Here, the governance problem was the absence of a government-controlled betting institution.</p>
<h2>Scandal #4: Poaching players from other Australian leagues, 1933</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29216/original/9q5z8th2-1376447767.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29216/original/9q5z8th2-1376447767.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29216/original/9q5z8th2-1376447767.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29216/original/9q5z8th2-1376447767.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29216/original/9q5z8th2-1376447767.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1104&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29216/original/9q5z8th2-1376447767.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1104&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29216/original/9q5z8th2-1376447767.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1104&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Essendon coach James Hird and his club have been charged with bring the game into disrepute.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Hamish Blair</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although there were many examples of Victorian players moving to South Australia and Western Australia as early as the 1890s - partly to chase work on the Kalgoorlie goldfields - by the depression of the 1930s, the poaching of top players by VFL clubs had become an art form.</p>
<p>Western Australians and South Australians began a long tradition of resentment against what later became called the “Big V” from this period. The climax was the all-conquering South Melbourne team of 1933, comprised so many outsiders it was called the Foreign Legion side. South would not win another flag – as Sydney – for eight decades.</p>
<p>This scandalous behaviour reflected the weak governance structures of the day, with so much power in the hands of the VFL vis-à-vis the other state league competitions.</p>
<h2>Scandal #5: Fitzroy, 1996</h2>
<p>After South Melbourne moved to Sydney in 1981 and the proposed mergers of Footscray and Fitzroy and Melbourne and Hawthorn failed, in 1996 Fitzroy was forcibly merged with Brisbane. </p>
<p>The option of being relegated to the reserves - later to become the new VFL, with other junior clubs from the previous VFA - was not offered to them.</p>
<h2>Scandal #6: Salary cap infringements, 1987-2012</h2>
<p>Prior to the formation of a national football league in 1990, the AFL introduced a national draft and a cap on the total salary that each club could spend. <a href="https://theconversation.com/afl-and-tanking-the-cure-might-be-worse-than-the-disease-8623">“Tanking”</a> to gain priority draft picks and the use of covert payments were temptations for all clubs. </p>
<p>There have been 28 occasions when clubs (indeed, most clubs) have been found guilty of salary cap infringements of one kind or another. The punishments have been fines made against club officials, and no premiership points have ever been deducted. </p>
<p>Earlier this year, Melbourne officials were <a href="http://www.afl.com.au/news/2013-02-19/afl-full-statement-melbourne-tanking-penalties">found guilty</a> of bringing the game into disrepute, even though claims of tanking during the 2009 season were not proven.</p>
<h2>Plus ça change?</h2>
<p>Were he alive today, my friend Sam would smile knowingly to himself as he read this morning’s papers, knowing that scandal has never truly left the now-ultra professional world of Australian rules footy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/16801/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Pascoe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As I write, the front pages of Melbourne’s newspapers this morning scream in chorus: Charged: Bombers Drug Scandal. But is this really the worst “scandal” in footy history? My first lesson in football…Robert Pascoe, Dean Laureate and Professor of History, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/170392013-08-14T01:19:14Z2013-08-14T01:19:14ZTime for OHS regulators to get off the bench and into the game<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29193/original/bs7s232x-1376441626.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">WorkSafe Victoria has chosen not to investigate events at the Essendon Football Club.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Joe Castro</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine a construction company asks its employees to take some health supplements to increase their stamina, thereby enabling them to work more productively. Imagine that the efficacy and legality of the supplements are then called into question. Now imagine that after months of frenzied media speculation, the state’s workplace health and safety regulator remains on the sidelines.</p>
<p>Fanciful? Possibly in the case of a construction company. But in the case of the Essendon Football Club, it is reality.</p>
<p>To date, Victoria’s workplace health and safety regulator, WorkSafe Victoria, has <a href="http://www.afl.com.au/news/2013-07-12/dons-drama-may-drag-on">chosen not to investigate</a> events at the Essendon Football Club, choosing instead to keep its options open as other “more appropriate bodies” look into the issue.</p>
<p>Presumably WorkSafe Victoria was referring to one or more of the Essendon Football Club, <a href="http://www.asada.gov.au/">Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority</a> (ASADA) and the AFL. Why these other bodies are “more appropriate” is not entirely clear, however. For all their rhetoric about the importance of the health and safety of the players, none have examined events through the prism of workplace health and safety.</p>
<p>The much-hyped <a href="http://www.essendonfc.com.au/news/2013-05-06/dr-ziggy-switskowski-report">Switkowski report</a>, for example, does not examine the Essendon Football Club’s governance practices through a health and safety lens - the topic is wholly missing from the report. Nor can it be expected to be a focus of the still-confidential ASADA interim report. ASADA’s mission is to protect Australian sporting integrity through the elimination of doping, not to enforce workplace health and safety.</p>
<p>As for the AFL, it appears to have set itself up as judge and jury. However, the nature of the <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/essendon-to-vigorously-defend-afl-charges-20130813-2rudp.html">charges it has laid</a> (engaging in conduct that is unbecoming or likely to prejudice the interests or reputation of the AFL or to bring the game into disrepute), the persons against whom charges have been laid (people in operational positions, while no directors have been charged), and the speed with which the charges were laid after receipt of the ASADA interim report (11 days), combine to indicate that the AFL’s main focus is as much about preserving the reputation and integrity of the competition as it heads into the finals as it is about player health and safety.</p>
<p>Every employer in Victoria (and the rest of Australia) owes a duty of care to provide employees with a working environment that is safe and without risk to health (so far as is reasonably practicable). This includes professional football clubs.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29195/original/98shf7gp-1376442296.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29195/original/98shf7gp-1376442296.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29195/original/98shf7gp-1376442296.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29195/original/98shf7gp-1376442296.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29195/original/98shf7gp-1376442296.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29195/original/98shf7gp-1376442296.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29195/original/98shf7gp-1376442296.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The AFL has charged Essendon coach James Hird with bringing the game into disrepute.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Hamish Blair</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And every employee in the state should be confident in WorkSafe Victoria’s ability and willingness to fulfil its statutory obligation to monitor and enforce compliance with the state’s workplace health and safety laws. This includes players in the employ of the clubs.</p>
<p>There is clearly enough evidence in the public domain upon which WorkSafe Victoria could commence an investigation. The Switkowski report alone <a href="http://www.essendonfc.com.au/news/2013-05-06/dr-ziggy-switskowski-report">paints a picture</a> of a “pharmacologically experimental” workplace in which normal controls broke down, accepted procedures were contravened, and due diligence was lacking.</p>
<p>The existence of other investigations by other bodies is not a good reason for WorkSafe Victoria not conducting its own investigation. First, parallel investigations of workplace incidents are not uncommon. It is also not the responsibility of these other bodies to enforce workplace health and safety laws. Finally, the AFL is far from an independent and impartial arbiter of the matter.</p>
<p>Nor is the fact that we are dealing with professional sporting clubs and players a good reason. The events under investigation were not between combatants on the gladiatorial arena. They took place in offices and medical rooms between club officials in authoritative positions and players, some of whom were young, impressionable and eager to please - the very scenario targeted by WorkSafe Victoria’s <a href="http://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/safety-and-prevention/health-and-safety-topics/young-workers">“young workers”</a> campaign.</p>
<p>What has happened at the Essendon Football Club - and what is to happen to the people involved - is not just about sport and the integrity of the AFL competition. It is a matter of public interest with the potential to shape people’s perceptions about the integrity of our workplace health and safety laws and the manner with which they enforced.</p>
<p>It is time for WorkSafe Victoria to get off the bench and into the game.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/17039/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eric Windholz worked with WorkSafe Victoria from 2001 to 2009, including as General Counsel and General Manager, Strategic Programs and Support. </span></em></p>Imagine a construction company asks its employees to take some health supplements to increase their stamina, thereby enabling them to work more productively. Imagine that the efficacy and legality of the…Eric Windholz, Lecturer in Law and Associate, Monash Centre for Regulatory Studies, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/152452013-06-18T20:39:16Z2013-06-18T20:39:16ZCan ex-doper Matt White lead a clean pro-cycling team?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/25725/original/mmfg9tzq-1371522782.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Confessed doper Matt White (second from right) has been reinstated as sports director of cycling 'clean team' Orica-GreenEdge. But is this a conflict of interest?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.greenedgecycling.com/news/-orica-greenedge-implements-recommendations-of-the-nicki-vance-report">official reinstatement</a> of confessed doper Matt White as sports director of Australian World Tour pro-cycling team <a href="http://www.greenedgecycling.com/">Orica-GreenEdge</a> passed with surprisingly little media or public scrutiny last week.</p>
<p>But while many fans may feel justified in switching off the <a href="https://theconversation.com/drugs-in-sport-saga-do-the-fans-really-care-13913">drugs in sport saga</a>, this latest development in Australian cycling deserves much closer focus than it is presently attracting.</p>
<p>White’s return to Orica-GreenEdge comes eight months after his October 2012 <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cycling/white-admits-doping-role-20121013-27k9v.html">admission to doping</a> as a professional cyclist with Lance Armstrong’s US Postal Service team. He has since <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/cyclingcentral/news/43536/exclusive:-matt-white-opens-up-on-doping-past-on-cycling-central-tv">revealed</a> that he doped for most of his professional career. </p>
<p>White’s reinstatement was largely facilitated by the review of Orica-GreenEdge anti-doping policy and practices by expert Nicki Vance. Her <a href="http://www.greenedgecycling.com/docs/nicki-vance-report.docx">May 2013 report</a> recommended the White reappointment after his backdated Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (<a href="http://www.asada.gov.au/">ASADA</a>) ban of six months was complete. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XzOsXrgZ2mk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Stuart O'Grady welcomes Matt White back into the team.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The conspicuous lack of public reaction to this news may be a sign that many have reached saturation with the drugs in sport issue. It has certainly been a busy year in elite sport as far as the misuse of drugs and other substances goes.</p>
<p>This issue has touched cycling, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/essendon-faces-a-doping-investigation-but-what-are-peptides-12042">AFL</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/cronulla-sharks-and-thymosin-beta-4-is-it-doping-12694">NRL</a>, <a href="http://www.swimming.org.au/customdata/index.cfm?fuseaction=CustomItem&ItemID=5592">swimming</a>, and also <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/cricket/australian-batsman-david-warner-in-trouble-over-alcohol-related-incident/story-fni2fnmo-1226662650398">cricket</a> if you include alcohol in the mix. It is a complex and wide reaching issue with no quick and easy fix.</p>
<h2>Conflicts of interest</h2>
<p>The Matt White case raises a series of very important questions that matter for the Orica-GreenEdge team, Australian cycling, and sports anti-doping policy generally. The first set of questions arises around the conflicts of interest and other pressures likely to emerge when past “dopers” are appointed to leadership roles in elite sport.</p>
<p>A significant query here is how White’s reinstatement could possibly be reconciled with the Orica-GreenEdge zero-tolerance doping stance, and much-publicised “<a href="http://www.greenedgecycling.com/node/-anti-doping-expert-to-review-orica-greenedge-cycling-policies-">clean team</a>” image.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/25727/original/8gq948gq-1371523872.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/25727/original/8gq948gq-1371523872.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/25727/original/8gq948gq-1371523872.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/25727/original/8gq948gq-1371523872.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/25727/original/8gq948gq-1371523872.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/25727/original/8gq948gq-1371523872.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/25727/original/8gq948gq-1371523872.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/25727/original/8gq948gq-1371523872.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Matt White relaxing with wife Jane Saville before the 2005 Jacobs Creek Tour Down Under.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>White’s past doping behaviour creates the very real potential for major dilemmas in his sports director role in relation to his views and decisions about team culture, and his perceived capacity to be objective in the face of any future breaches and indeed even minor transgressions by people he is responsible for.</p>
<p>Add to this the interests of the Orica-GreenEdge Executive and other stakeholders and their expectations about White’s future words and deeds. Again, his past behaviour is sure to have significantly raised the weight of these expectations already.</p>
<p>White’s history means we must ask and receive an answer to the question of what he will do in the anti-doping space now.</p>
<h2>What do other cyclists think?</h2>
<p>A second set of questions arises in relation to the public credibility of appointments like that of Matt White’s, and by association the anti-doping policies that facilitate such decisions.</p>
<p>What is the view of cycling fans and the general public? We have to also wonder what the current cohort of Orica-GreenEdge riders and personnel thinks about the Matt White case.</p>
<p>To inform her review, Nicki Vance spoke with some 59 riders and staff at Orica-GreenEdge in wide-ranging interviews. Did she seek their views about the possibility of a White reinstatement? If not, why not?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/25732/original/8nmrwsnn-1371525301.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/25732/original/8nmrwsnn-1371525301.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/25732/original/8nmrwsnn-1371525301.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/25732/original/8nmrwsnn-1371525301.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/25732/original/8nmrwsnn-1371525301.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=268&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/25732/original/8nmrwsnn-1371525301.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/25732/original/8nmrwsnn-1371525301.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/25732/original/8nmrwsnn-1371525301.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Orica-GreenEdge at the Giro d'Italia, 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">DancingOnThePedals.net</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Given most professional cyclists these days <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&ved=0CGIQFjAJ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.act.cycling.org.au%2Fsite%2Fcycling%2Fact%2Fdownloads%2FCycling%2520ACT%2520Anti%2520Doping%252009.doc&ei=mLu_UY3GBMnykQXEioCQDA&usg=AFQjCNGNS-fby2VOOM7E2GaTKjQae5Nh3w&bvm=bv.47883778,d.dGI">publicly support</a> anti-doping policy and measures, at least some of the new guard of young riders must be unhappy with the White reinstatement. If not, what does this suggest about the post-Armstrong culture of professional cycling, or the efficacy of current cycling governance and anti-doping education measures?</p>
<p>And what about the Australian professionals in other cycling teams, or the younger up-and-coming future stars? How has the White decision impacted the image of Orica-GreenEdge? Is it still a desirable team for aspirational young riders? How would parents react to the news of their teenager being selected to this team now?</p>
<h2>Stimulating discussion by asking more questions</h2>
<p>Such questions seem particularly relevant given the <a href="http://www.greenedgecycling.com/docs/nicki-vance-report.docx">Vance report</a> highlights the importance of</p>
<blockquote>
<p>ethics and values discussion to encourage the maintenance of a non-doping approach.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/25730/original/m3r2kgrh-1371524935.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/25730/original/m3r2kgrh-1371524935.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/25730/original/m3r2kgrh-1371524935.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/25730/original/m3r2kgrh-1371524935.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/25730/original/m3r2kgrh-1371524935.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/25730/original/m3r2kgrh-1371524935.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/25730/original/m3r2kgrh-1371524935.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/25730/original/m3r2kgrh-1371524935.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Matt White in 2012.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But we have to wonder what this discussion would look like, and how it would even be possible in the absence of any public debate on the issues and questions identified above.</p>
<p>Let me be clear that none of this is intended to question Matt White’s character or intentions. He appears to be well liked in the professional cycling world, and is obviously a highly regarded sports director in Australia and abroad. He gets results.</p>
<p>White deserves some credit for the admissions he has made, and he has arguably already received that. We should also remember that even though he stood to gain from his confessions, White spoke up in an environment where other past and present cyclists with alleged cases to answer have said nothing.</p>
<p>This demonstrates yet again that increasingly hard-line anti-doping policies do little to reveal the <a href="http://theconversation.com/review-of-cycling-integrity-must-consider-the-lessons-of-history-10649">full truth</a> of doping in sport, and they lack the sophistication and reach required of <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/high-on-moral-panic-20130211-2e8rn.html">effective policies</a> and programs here. </p>
<p>To its credit the Orica-GreenEdge Australian pro-cycling team has <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-11/greenedge-confirms-whites-return/4747614?section=sport">publicly promised</a> to implement all of the Vance review recommendations which cover past breaches, recruitment, adherence to current protocols, education, and the team’s external anti-doping promotion activity. </p>
<p>One hopes that Matt White himself comes to play an active role in the Orica-GreenEdge response to the Vance recommendations. He has returned to his sports director role on a 12-month probation.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/25733/original/sgz8w67h-1371525486.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/25733/original/sgz8w67h-1371525486.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/25733/original/sgz8w67h-1371525486.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/25733/original/sgz8w67h-1371525486.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/25733/original/sgz8w67h-1371525486.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/25733/original/sgz8w67h-1371525486.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/25733/original/sgz8w67h-1371525486.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/25733/original/sgz8w67h-1371525486.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Petit Brun</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This will be an important period for White, and he could prove to be an effective public voice against doping in Australian cycling and beyond if he chooses to do so and the audience is receptive.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, after an eventful past two or so years with the drugs in sport issue in Australia, there are growing signs that the public shock and indignation about the cases before us is giving way to frustration and disinterest.</p>
<p>The Matt White case is important because it helps to highlight the contradictions and weaknesses of current anti-doping policy in Australia. It also gives us a useful new set of questions that should be asked about the real consequences of such policies for individuals and other stakeholders. </p>
<p>Let’s hope there are enough people still listening for the answers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/15245/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Craig Fry is a current recipient of National Health and Medical Research Council and Australian Research Council funding.</span></em></p>The official reinstatement of confessed doper Matt White as sports director of Australian World Tour pro-cycling team Orica-GreenEdge passed with surprisingly little media or public scrutiny last week…Craig Fry, NHMRC Career Development Fellow, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/134132013-04-11T01:24:38Z2013-04-11T01:24:38ZExplainer: coaches, ASADA and drugs in sport<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/22326/original/szw7p2hm-1365643135.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A dejected James Hird walks from the field after Essendon were beaten by Geelong in Rd17 2012. Hird faces media allegations that he has taken performance enhancing drugs.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Castro</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With a <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/hird-injected-drugs-20130410-2hlvx.html">media firestorm</a> engulfing James Hird, coach of AFL club Essendon, over allegations that he may have taken substances banned by sports doping agencies, where do coaching staff stand in relation to performance enhancing drug use?</p>
<p>Hird has denied any wrongdoing and says he welcomes the chance to clear his name.</p>
<p>“I have at all times fully adhered to, and promoted the WADA code and the AFL rules, and the code of ethics of the Essendon Football Club. I would never do anything to put the players of the Essendon Football Club or the club at risk,” he said.</p>
<p>The penalties for athletes caught using banned or performance enhancing drugs are clear under the regulations laid down the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority and the World Anti-Doping Authority.</p>
<p>The Conversation spoke with Associate Professor Bob Stewart in the School of Sport and Exercise Science at Victoria University about the exact position regarding coaching staff who use performance enhancing or banned substances and the difference between personal use being involved in a program of providing such substances to athletes.</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Are there any restrictions on what substances coaching staff can take under ASADA regulations?</strong></p>
<p>No there are not. ASADA regulations only cover athletes. That’s the focus of the whole legislation and regulation of drug use in sport.</p>
<p><strong>If coaches are found to have taken non-ASADA approved substances, what penalties apply?</strong></p>
<p>There are no penalties under the ASADA code. It only applies to athletes and players.</p>
<p><strong>If a coach is found to have actively taken part in a program of using non-approved substances for players, what penalties apply?</strong></p>
<p>Under the wider ASADA rules, there is provision for the supply or the trafficking, the posession and supply of substances. So theoretically you may find a coach implicated if in fact he or she is in possession of or supplying substances to the athletes directly.</p>
<p><strong>If there are no legal restrictions, are there ethical considerations that would fall on the senior coach of 42 young men in terms of what they put into their bodies under his or her guidance?</strong></p>
<p>There are ethical issues, but they’re very subjective ethical issues. You could say what a coach or an official does with their body should be seen as independent of what they do with the player’s bodies. </p>
<p>So to that extent there is a separation of decision making, and while there’s an ethical implication, for me it’s one of individual ethics, and a coach or an official should have the freedom to ingest into their body what they think is appropriate as long as it doesn’t impinge the athlete’s right to ingest or not ingest.</p>
<p>It appears to me that officials are becoming quite overzealous in their treatment of this problem. It’s one thing to look at the athletes and what they’re ingesting into their bodies and what they aim to achieve through that, but it’s another thing to then look at coaches and officials and start wanting to regulate what they put into their bodies. </p>
<p>For me it’s verging on the bizarre if you want to start controlling what they do with their bodies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/13413/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bob Stewart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With a media firestorm engulfing James Hird, coach of AFL club Essendon, over allegations that he may have taken substances banned by sports doping agencies, where do coaching staff stand in relation to…Bob Stewart, Associate Professor in the School of Sport and Exercise Science, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/131512013-03-29T22:07:33Z2013-03-29T22:07:33ZASADA can throw the AFL into chaos - and here’s how<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21888/original/znf9zkmd-1364536916.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">James Hird suffers an injury as a player. Could yet worse hurt be to come?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>AFL club Essendon has so far avoided the imposition of any sanctions by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA). Yet the investigation into the activities of the club, especially the supplements program allegedly involving injections to the stomach of players, remains ongoing.</p>
<p>While the principle of innocence until guilt is proven remains, the Bombers are still a long way from walking out the proverbial front door, their heads held high. They are not the only AFL club under investigation, with Geelong and Gold Coast also facing questions from ASADA.</p>
<p>Journalist Caroline Wilson speculated recently on the Channel 9 program Footy Classified as to the implications of Essendon being found guilty of breaching various elements of the ASADA code. They are potentially disastrous not just for Essendon FC and some of its players, but for the whole AFL.</p>
<p>While it is important to re-iterate that no such breaches have yet been found or admitted, it is also worth investigating what might happen to the competition if penalties like six month or even two year bans are imposed on players and coaching staff.</p>
<p>As it stands, such an outcome is still a definite possibility.</p>
<h2>Stripping points</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/bombers-secret-deal-exposed-20130327-2guq0.html">As a recent article by Roy Masters outlines</a>, a deal had been mooted with ASADA whereby Essendon escaped sanction while the Cronulla Sharks received a six month ban. </p>
<p>The AFL has yet to strip a team of a premiership or deprive them of the opportunity to play for premiership points or suspend them from the competition, but the National Rugby League has stripped the Melbourne Storm of two premierships and required it to play out a season without receiving points.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.asada.gov.au/">ASADA</a> is an agency of the Commonwealth, so it is subject to Commonwealth administrative law, but it relies on its contractual arrangements with individual sports to enforce its recommended sanctions.</p>
<p>The ASADA Code requires that individual players be sanctioned for taking banned substances. This seems unfair in the case of the Essendon players, who had reason to believe that they were being administered the substances in the course of their employment. </p>
<p>If anyone is to be sanctioned, it should be the club that allowed the treatment to take place. Yet ASADA and the World Anti-Doping Authority (WADA) is clear that players must take ultimate responsibility for what goes into their bodies: ignorance is not a defence, no matter how unfair it may seem.</p>
<h2>The letter of the law</h2>
<p>There is a massive issue of due process here. Essendon players (and indeed the Cronulla players) have returned no positive tests for banned substances. Yet Lance Armstrong never tested positive either.</p>
<p>In keeping with the approach of ASADA and the Australian Crime Commission when they went public with their allegations, ASADA is trying to negotiate guilty pleas and implication of others in return for imposition of light sanctions. </p>
<p>Proper process is to investigate, lay charges and have the charges heard by an independent tribunal. ASADA attempts to be both prosecutor and judge, recommending a penalty to the sport’s governing body which that body then imposes.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21887/original/gjk4d4w4-1364535763.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21887/original/gjk4d4w4-1364535763.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21887/original/gjk4d4w4-1364535763.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21887/original/gjk4d4w4-1364535763.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21887/original/gjk4d4w4-1364535763.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21887/original/gjk4d4w4-1364535763.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21887/original/gjk4d4w4-1364535763.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cronulla Sharks coach Steve Flanagan was stood down and reinstated during the course of an ASADA investigation into supplement use at the club.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Jane Dempster</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Essendon and its players are yet to be charged, let alone found guilty. However the ASADA code allows for an Anti-doping Rule Violation “ADRV” to be found against an athlete even without a positive test.</p>
<p>If there is some sort of plea bargain, the AFL may indeed seek to impose sanctions mid-season. The ASADA code focuses on individual guilt, so it is not clear whether it could sanction the club as a whole. Individual players could be suspended and Essendon could perhaps field its VFL team, though it would then disrupt the VFL. This would also require the approval of the AFL Commission and the other 17 clubs.</p>
<h2>In the event Essendon are found guilty …</h2>
<p>Essendon might withdraw from the remaining games, unable to field a team. This would clearly affect contractual arrangements for the staging and broadcast of matches. The AFL might allow Essendon to continue to compete but without the possibility of further premiership points, as occured with the Melbourne Storm. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21886/original/km4v3rdg-1364534900.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21886/original/km4v3rdg-1364534900.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21886/original/km4v3rdg-1364534900.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21886/original/km4v3rdg-1364534900.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21886/original/km4v3rdg-1364534900.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1014&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21886/original/km4v3rdg-1364534900.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1014&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21886/original/km4v3rdg-1364534900.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1014&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">James Hird wears a North Melbourne Kangaroos jumper in honour of North champion Glenn Archer. Essendon is under investigation by ASADA for possible breaches of the anti-doping code.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Martin Philbey</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is hard to see how they could be stripped of any points already won as the AFL is allowing the club to compete while under investigation. In any case, any sanctioning of the club should be in relation to the 2012 season when the alleged violations occurred.</p>
<p>The AFL certainly has cause to regret signing on with ASADA. Threatened with the withdrawal of federal government funding if it did not sign on to the WADA requirements, the AFL felt its hands were tied. The richest sporting organisation in the land may yet come to bitterly regret that decision.</p>
<h2>No winners in a tawdry saga</h2>
<p>The ASADA code does not seem well adapted to dealing with club-approved doping as it is geared to punishing individuals.</p>
<p>The least disruptive method would be for the players to serve a six-month ban during the off-season, but this would bring ASADA further into disrepute. It would also call in question natural justice - if players are to be punished, surely they must miss matches?</p>
<p>This is an opportune moment to take a good look at the operations of ASADA, which is affiliated with the WADA, headed by Australia’s own John Fahey. </p>
<p>It has the power to destroy not just individual careers but whole teams and indeed competitions. While the investigation into Essendon and Cronulla for injecting their players with substances that may not have been banned at the time has been a wake-up call to clubs, ASADA’s powers and investigative methods would benefit from an injection of due process.</p>
<p>One thing is for sure. The AFL, and especially Essendon, would like this whole sorry business put to bed as soon as possible.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/13151/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matt Harvey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>AFL club Essendon has so far avoided the imposition of any sanctions by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA). Yet the investigation into the activities of the club, especially the supplements…Matt Harvey, Lecturer in Law, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/129972013-03-22T04:56:26Z2013-03-22T04:56:26ZAnti-doping agency warns cheats on the health risks of Endurobol<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21605/original/nvhmgp2m-1363921567.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There may be "health risks" associated with GW501516, but what are they?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hannibal/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><strong><em>This article was updated on April 12, 2013, and includes responses from WADA and GSK.</em></strong></p>
<p>The World Anti-Doping Agency (<a href="http://www.wada-ama.org/">WADA</a>) has taken the unusual step of <a href="http://playtrue.wada-ama.org/news/wada-issues-alert-on-gw501516/">warning athletes</a> about the health risks of the banned substance GW501516.</p>
<p>In an alert published yesterday, the agency claimed the substance – also known online by its supplement name, Endurobol – was being sold on the black market as an endurance booster and was being abused by athletes.</p>
<p>There is no indication as yet as to how prevalent the use of the drug is, nor what the specific health concerns of the substance were that prompted the global alert, but according to WADA:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The side effect of this chemical compound is so serious that WADA is taking the rare step of warning “cheats” to ensure that there is complete awareness of the possible health risks to athletes who succumb to the temptation of using GW501516 for performance enhancement.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>GW501516 was described by WADA as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a developmental drug that was withdrawn from research by the pharmaceutical company and terminated when serious toxicities were discovered in pre-clinical studies.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21617/original/c3zyb5d4-1363926455.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21617/original/c3zyb5d4-1363926455.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21617/original/c3zyb5d4-1363926455.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21617/original/c3zyb5d4-1363926455.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21617/original/c3zyb5d4-1363926455.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21617/original/c3zyb5d4-1363926455.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21617/original/c3zyb5d4-1363926455.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Choose your poison: Endurobol can be bought in powder or liquid forms.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">canonsnapper</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unfortunately, 2009 <a href="http://www.toxicology.org/AI/Pub/Tox/2009Tox.pdf">document</a> provided by WADA did not shed any light on the reason for the drug termination by the pharmaceutical company and/or WADA’s latest concern.</p>
<p>What we do know is that GW501516 is a developmental drug that was being developed by the major pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (<a href="http://www.gsk.com.au/default.aspx">GSK</a>).</p>
<p>And we know a little about its chemical make-up and potential uses.</p>
<h2>Endurobol’s mechanism of action</h2>
<p>Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peroxisome_proliferator-activated_receptor">(PPARs)</a> are a group of drugs that are believed to act on the nuclear hormone receptors (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_receptor">NHRs</a>) involved in glucose and lipid metabolism.</p>
<p>They belong to a group of receptors called the <a href="http://www2.niddk.nih.gov/Research/ScientificAreas/Endocrinology/NUCR.htm">NHR super family</a>, which also includes receptors for thyroid hormones, steroid hormones and vitamin D.</p>
<p>Three different PPARs — PPAR-alpha (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peroxisome_proliferator-activated_receptor_alpha">PPARA</a>), PPAR-gamma (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peroxisome_proliferator-activated_receptor_gamma">PPARG</a>), and PPAR-delta (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peroxisome_proliferator-activated_receptor_delta">PPARD</a>) — have been described. </p>
<p>GW501516 (also known as GW501, GW516, GW1516) belongs to family of drugs that act on the PPARD receptors and is an oral drug that is <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17110604">bioactive</a> (has interaction with or effect on cell tissue) in humans.</p>
<p>PPARD is believed to <a href="http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/2/230.full.pdf">work at the gene level</a> and <a href="http://mend.endojournals.org/content/early/2003/10/02/me.2003-0151.full.pdf">affects skeletal muscle metabolism</a>. In one <a href="http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.0020294">laboratory study</a>, PPARD activation seemed to nearly double the performance of running endurance in untrained adult mice.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21618/original/ynhnxmt5-1363926738.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/21618/original/ynhnxmt5-1363926738.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21618/original/ynhnxmt5-1363926738.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21618/original/ynhnxmt5-1363926738.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21618/original/ynhnxmt5-1363926738.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21618/original/ynhnxmt5-1363926738.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/21618/original/ynhnxmt5-1363926738.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lucky he has a wheel: GW501516 can almost double the running time of mice.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">riekhavoc</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other potential functions of GW501516 include its regulation of fat metabolism, glucose uptake in skeletal muscle tissue and an increase in muscle gene expression. </p>
<p>The combined effects of these various functions suggest it has a role in burning fat for energy instead of carbohydrates or muscle protein. </p>
<p>As such, it fits within an area of research into clinical applications for obese patients to lose fat effectively without experiencing <a href="http://www.druglessdoctor.com/_blog/Men%E2%80%99s_Health/post/What_is_muscle_catabolism_/">muscle catabolism</a> or the effects and satiety issues associated with low blood sugar. </p>
<p>In studies on mice, GW501516 led to increases in muscle mass, which improved glucose tolerance and reduced fat mass accumulation even in mice fed a very high fat diet.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.toxicology.org/AI/Pub/Tox/2009Tox.pdf">Further rodent studies</a> suggest there may be an increased risk of some forms of tumours in rats and mice administered GW501516. The implication of this finding is at present unknown as the in vitro therapeutic effects of GW501516 on human pancreatic cancer cells is also postulated. </p>
<h2>Human health risks</h2>
<p>GSK undertook two <a href="http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-help/trials/types-of-trials/phase-1-2-3-and-4-trials#phase1">phase I</a> and one <a href="http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-help/trials/types-of-trials/phase-1-2-3-and-4-trials#phase2">phase II</a> clinical trials for GW501516. </p>
<p>A review of the <a href="http://www.gsk-clinicalstudyregister.com/protocol_comp_list.jsp;jsessionid=9AA054C8F685921EDE90E5828BCC1035?compound=Gw501516">reports for these</a> shows one phase I clinical trial was terminated – but no reason is provided as to why. The other <a href="http://www.gsk-clinicalstudyregister.com/protocol_detail.jsp?protocolId=PAD20001&studyId=D0C10B7B-BDE9-4488-AC69-6EFAC83AC1C7&compound=Gw501516">two trials</a> were listed by GSK as completed.</p>
<p>The terminated Phase I <a href="http://www.gsk-clinicalstudyregister.com/protocol_detail.jsp?protocolId=PAD100964&studyId=47034B9E-C346-450B-8885-4315746CDE33&compound=Gw501516">study</a> evaluated the usefulness of the drug in treating patients with heart disease. It also measured a number of other potential markers of drug activity, including levels of lipids and proteins in participants’ blood. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00841217?term=GW501516&rank=4">phase IV clinical study</a> was completed in Australia in 2008. It assessed the application of GW5015156 in the treatment of high blood cholesterol in insulin resistance and obesity. </p>
<p>No adverse events were <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21816786">reported by</a> the authors for the phase IV trials. The authors also cited two earlier clinical studies that showed no significant adverse effect of the drug, including liver or muscle responses in participants treated with GW501516.</p>
<h2>Doping</h2>
<p>Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors have been listed as a specific class of substances banned under <a href="http://www.wada-ama.org/en/World-Anti-Doping-Program/Sports-and-Anti-Doping-Organizations/International-Standards/Prohibited-List/">WADA’s prohibited list</a> since 2009. </p>
<p>Prior to this, the ban was effective only under the generic header of “gene doping” as GW501516 affects gene expression.</p>
<p>According to the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (<a href="http://www.asada.gov.au/">ASADA</a>) website, PPARs are banned both in and out of competition. But searching the site for GW501516, GW501, GW516, GW1516, GSK-516 and Endurobol all returned negative results. </p>
<p>In the <a href="http://www.wada-ama.org/Documents/World_Anti-Doping_Program/WADP-Prohibited-list/2013/WADA-Prohibited-List-2013-EN.pdf">printed version</a> of the current WADA prohibited list, GW501516 is banned under section S4-5b, and in the <a href="http://www.wada-ama.org/en/World-Anti-Doping-Program/Sports-and-Anti-Doping-Organizations/International-Standards/Prohibited-List/The-2011-Prohibited-List/Prohibited-at-All-Times/">online version</a> it’s banned under section M3.</p>
<p>This, in and of itself, offers little in the way of explanation for the current – and seemingly urgent – WADA warning. Like many people, I’m hoping for more clarification from WADA in the coming days.</p>
<p>I am also waiting for further updates from representatives at GSK, who I contacted today.</p>
<hr>
<h2><strong>Update, April 12, 2013:</strong></h2>
<p>Since the global announcement by WADA on March 21, 2013, various online discussion <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:GW_501516">forums</a> have speculated on WADA and GSK’s potential new information on the health effects in humans.</p>
<p>This is since WADA has known about its potential for abuse <a href="http://www.wada-ama.org/rtecontent/document/2009_Prohibited_List_ENG_Final_20_Sept_08.pdf">since 2008</a> and GSK has known about its <a href="http://www.gsk.com/media/resource-centre/anti-doping.html?tab=tabWADA">health effects in rodents</a> after clinical trials were started.</p>
<p>This author has received official clarification from WADA and GSK on the matter, and their responses are reproduced below.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.wada-ama.org/en/About-WADA/Governance/WADA-Management--Biographies/Dr-Olivier-Rabin/">Dr Olivier Rabin</a> (WADA Science Director) as relayed through WADA’s Communications Director to this author:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The decision to release this communiqué came from a combination of factors catalysed by the collaboration agreement signed between GSK and WADA which facilitates exchange of information between our two organisations. As part of our collaboration, GSK came to realise that GW501516 was now available on the internet and WADA was recently made aware of several cases of abuse of GW501516. These two recent facts led to further discussions between GSK and WADA. The exceptional warning was then communicated by WADA to protect the health of the athletes … WADA relies on the information and expertise of GSK concerning the health effects in relation to the use of the substance.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Global External Communications representative from GSK also provided the following information to this author:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>GW501516 was an experimental drug being developed to raise HDL or “good” cholesterol in patients with dyslipidemia via its action on muscle. However, all clinical development of GW501516 was stopped when toxicities were found in routine, long-term animal studies that were being conducted in parallel with the clinical studies. The animal studies are required by regulatory authorities as part of the marketing application process.</p>
<p>The long-term effect of GW501516 with chronic dosing in patients is unknown as the initial clinical studies in man were of limited duration and involved small numbers of patients …</p>
<p>Subsequently, the Investigational New Drug application with the FDA was withdrawn in 2009 and GSK has not conducted any further clinical research …</p>
<p>The most recent WADA announcement was not prompted by any new clinical data from studies investigating GW501516. GSK proactively contacted WADA after becoming aware of internet reports in January 2013 suggesting potential abuse of GW501516 by athletes. Independently, WADA had also found several positive cases indicating abuse with the agent in early 2013 as part of their testing. GW501516 has been on the Prohibited List for several years and this action was independent of GSK. In light of the information of abuse given by GSK combined with WADA’s positive test results indicating abuse, WADA took the unusual step of issuing the alert.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The recent WADA warning was therefore not prompted by recent findings of adverse human health effects <em>per se</em>, but rather the concern of the substance’s ready availability and abuse by athletes.</p>
<p>It is understood that a Russian cyclist (European track champion Valery Kaikov) has yesterday been named as the <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/04/11/uk-cycling-russia-doping-idUKBRE93A0GU20130411">first athlete</a> to be tested positive for the drug.</p>
<p>Human studies on the effects of GW501516 include the following:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00388180?term=GW501516&rank=3">Phase I trial</a>: <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22814748">multicentre trial</a> conducted between <a href="http://www.gsk-clinicalstudyregister.com/protocol_detail.jsp?protocolId=PAD100958&studyId=52957070-DF43-451A-89C0-ED070B079173&compound=Gw501516">2004-12</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00158899?term=GW501516&rank=1">Phase II trial</a>: trial approved in Belgium and conducted between 2004-11. <a href="http://www.gsk-clinicalstudyregister.com/protocol_detail.jsp?protocolId=PAD20001&studyId=D0C10B7B-BDE9-4488-AC69-6EFAC83AC1C7&compound=Gw501516">Results not published</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00841217?term=GW501516&rank=4">Phase IV trials</a>: <a href="http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/96/10/E1568.long">conducted in Australia between 2003-08</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/dta.1413/abstract;jsessionid=AD6A5D0807C4A0BC13E57ACED7BD634A.d03t03">Non-GSK-affiliatied anti-doping research: conducted between 2009-12</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://atvb.ahajournals.org/content/27/2/359.long">High-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol Effects in Healthy Subjects</a> Administered a Peroxisome Proliferator Activated Receptor.</li>
<li><a href="http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/57/2/332.long">Research into Peroxisome Proliferator–Activated Receptor effects in obese men</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p>There were no side-effects reported in the human studies.</p>
<p>But this may be due to short study durations. It may also be due to the small doses used in humans.</p>
<p>The side-effects of GW501516 from animal studies were based on large doses of the drug.</p>
<p>There are at present <a href="http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=Peroxisome+Proliferator-Activated+Receptor&recr=Open">at least eight</a> separate clinical trials being conducted using other drugs of the PPAR class and they are in various stages of development.</p>
<p>Endurobol is currently being sold “legally” in the unregulated <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_market">“grey market”</a> by Australian entities as either a (non-medication) supplement or a chemical reagent for scientific purposes (although the intention for the sale under this category is clear).</p>
<p>Based on the known mechanism of action of GW501516 and PPARs, these substances are unlikely to be classified under the category of Selective Androgen Receptor Moderators (<a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jm900280m">SARMs</a>) — restricted drugs that have effects similar to steroids - highlighted in the recent <a href="http://www.crimecommission.gov.au/publications/other-publications/organised-crime-drugs-sport/performance-image-enhancing-substances#3">Australian Crime Commission (ACC) report</a>.</p>
<p>According to the ACC report, the scheduling of SARMs was recently considered by the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s (<a href="http://www.tga.gov.au/">TGA</a>) Advisory Committee on Medicines and Scheduling.</p>
<p>The committee determined that SARMs will be classified as a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_for_the_Uniform_Scheduling_of_Medicines_and_Poisons#Schedule_4_prescription_only_medicine.2Fprescription_animal_remedy">Schedule 4 medicine</a> and included in Appendix D in the Standard for the Uniform Scheduling of Medicines and Poisons (<a href="http://www.tga.gov.au/industry/scheduling-poisons-standard.htm">SUSMP</a>) (The Poisons Standard).</p>
<p>This will make it illegal to possess SARMs without a prescription.</p>
<p>This change in scheduling will take effect on May 1, 2013.</p>
<p>In view that it is already been confirmed as a substance of abuse as well as its potential carcinogenic effects, this author has urged the TGA to consider if GW501516 (and potentially various PPARs) should be classified within the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/12997/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Benjamin Koh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This article was updated on April 12, 2013, and includes responses from WADA and GSK. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has taken the unusual step of warning athletes about the health risks of the banned…Benjamin Koh, Doctoral Researcher, Complementary and Alternate Medicine, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/121212013-02-11T19:25:18Z2013-02-11T19:25:18ZTarred with the same brush: what do sports scientists do?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/20125/original/5h4n7wk5-1360554385.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Since claims of systematic doping in Australian sport emerged last week, the role of sports scientists has been called into question.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">marc falardeau</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sports scientists have taken something of a media beating over the past week following <a href="https://theconversation.com/drugs-crime-and-ball-games-how-aussie-sport-got-crooked-12084">revelations</a> of alleged widespread illegal doping across Australian professional sporting codes. While this may be appropriate in some instances, it has also highlighted the lack of awareness about the number of differently skilled sports scientists being tarred with the same brush. </p>
<p>In my world, while we all answer to the generic term “sports scientist”, we are a group of diverse specialists that have developed specific knowledge and skill in one area of science. If we consider the team of sports scientists within a high-performance sport setting, such as the <a href="http://www.ausport.gov.au/ais">Australian Institute of Sport</a> (AIS) or an AFL club, the diversity of expertise is a defining feature. </p>
<p>Much of the media focus in the last week has been on a <a href="http://www.news.com.au/sport/afl/allegations-of-possible-use-of-banned-drugs-systematic-cheating-secret-injections-rock-mighty-essendon-club/story-fnelctok-1226571185543">chemist</a> and a <a href="http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/afl/afl-vows-to-investigate-the-weapons-former-clubs/story-e6freck3-1226573889644">strength and conditioning coach</a>. In my career, for what it’s worth, I’ve never met a “sports chemist”. </p>
<p>But I’ve worked with many expert nutritionists, such as <a href="http://www.ausport.gov.au/ais/nutrition/about_us/ais_dietitians/louise_burke">Professor Louise Bourke</a> of the AIS. Professor Bourke is internationally renowned for <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22551533">her work</a> in assisting athletes to maximise their food and hydration strategies to enhance training and performance. </p>
<p>She and her colleagues’ contributions, as with many of the other specialists, are based on years of systematic scientific enquiry – not quick fixes but step-by-step, methodological progress well within the parameters of what’s safe and legal.</p>
<h2>Physiology</h2>
<p>Closely related to nutrition is physiology, which is perhaps the discipline most identifiable by the public as the group considered to epitomise “sports science”. These specialists are experts in the conditioning or fitness development of athletes. </p>
<p>This group of experts has delivered many benefits to athletes from the <a href="http://www.arcticheat.com.au/letsgetitstraight.htm">cutting-edge ice vest</a> used at the 1996 Olympic Games to the more routine but critical monitoring and interpretation of athlete performance through techniques such as GPS, heart rate and lactate measures. </p>
<p>One of the fathers of sports science, <a href="http://www.ausport.gov.au/ais/innovation/our_team/allan_hahn">Professor Allan Hahn</a>, is a physiologist famous for pioneering physiological talent identification in <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16183770">rowing</a>. </p>
<p>Not surprisingly, <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/pies-keep-mum-about-fitness-success-secrets-20101002-16236.html">Dr David Buttifant</a>, who has been the head of sports science at Collingwood Football Club for the last 13 years, uses Professor Hahn as a mentor and is equally well-respected within our industry for his contribution to the science of football.</p>
<h2>Recovery and movement</h2>
<p>The other discipline that could be labelled under the physical conditioning sports sciences is that of <a href="http://www.ausport.gov.au/ais/sssm/fatigue_and_recovery">recovery</a>. This has emerged in the last decade as a discipline in its own right. Perhaps most famously, it has introduced concepts such as ice baths, compression techniques and better sleeping habits to high-performance athletes. </p>
<p>Over the corridor are the movement scientists – a grouping that includes biomechanists, who measure the technical skill of athletes. Without this group, inefficient and/or injurious techniques can infiltrate a sport; they are critical to providing objective evidence to support the coach’s eye. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/20132/original/nxdn32dk-1360556624.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/20132/original/nxdn32dk-1360556624.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/20132/original/nxdn32dk-1360556624.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/20132/original/nxdn32dk-1360556624.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/20132/original/nxdn32dk-1360556624.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/20132/original/nxdn32dk-1360556624.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/20132/original/nxdn32dk-1360556624.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The AIS has dedicated significant resources to being at the ‘cutting edge’ of sports science.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Australian Sports Commission</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.uwa.edu.au/people/bruce.elliott">Professor Bruce Elliott’s</a> work in <a href="http://www.setantacollege.com/wp-content/uploads/Journal_db/Disk%20degeneration%20and%20fast%20bowling%20in.pdf">cricket fast bowling</a> and <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2577481/">tennis</a> is internationally renowned and has been critical in improving our understanding of these skills so that they can be developed in a developmentally-appropriate fashion to withstand high-performance workloads.</p>
<h2>Skill and performance</h2>
<p>Another group of movement scientists are the skill-acquisition specialists. This group, of which I’m one, work closely with the coaches to provide evidence-based advice about the most effective methods to practice and develop the key skills of a game. </p>
<p>This discipline has introduced concepts such as simulation training approaches which may be <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3515097.htm">more sci-fi</a> than many of the traditionalists would like, but they are motivated by evidence demonstrating that players’ decision making skills can be improved outside of typical training or game situations.</p>
<p>Performance analysts are probably the second most recognisable group in the world of professional sport where they collect and analyse the metrics and patterns that define a game. It is this group of experts the AFL has relied upon to provide objective statistics on the speed of the game. </p>
<p>This group of experts – including <a href="http://www.news.com.au/sport/afl/hawthorns-secret-weapon-a-mad-scientist-in-shorts-pushes-the-boundaries/story-fnelctok-1226478401305">David Rath</a> at Hawthorn Football Club – is responsible for highly sophisticated analyses that occur in most clubs to drill much deeper into the factors and patterns that determine a win and loss than the simple parameters often presented in the media, which is often focused on who had the most kicks. </p>
<p>All of these sports scientists may have started their careers in a relatively common manner completing a degree in Human Movement, Physical Education or Applied Science. In most cases they then completed an Honours or Masters degree typically followed by a PhD specialising in a particular facet of their discipline. Such training takes some seven to nine years to complete. </p>
<p>While people may enter the high-performance sports industry at various times during this education process and hence bring differing amounts of expertise and experience, they are typically mentored by a more experienced colleague responsible for immersing them in a unique culture of scientific enquiry and performance. </p>
<p>They publish their work in scientific journals and at conferences subject to international peer review (which is often more grilling than any media report!). </p>
<p>Some of the strategies thought to be a real performance advantage are not published in the short-term but surface after the group has established a competitive advantage. Take, for instance, David Buttifant’s <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/afl/more-news/collingwoods-sport-science-director-david-buttifant-says-players-raise-the-bar-in-arizona/story-e6frf9jf-1226222382867">altitude program</a> at Collingwood Football Club. </p>
<p>Only recently has a <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23170749">scientific paper</a> emerged about this work and – importantly – the fact that it <em>has</em> emerged illustrates one of the natural processes that good scientists follow.</p>
<h2>Team approach</h2>
<p>In most high-performance settings, the sports science team work collaboratively to provide a coaching panel with evidence-based approaches to athlete development and performance. For instance, the coach presents the group with a question such as Player X has a problem kicking goals in Australian rules football. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/20129/original/wq2j34tm-1360555744.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/20129/original/wq2j34tm-1360555744.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/20129/original/wq2j34tm-1360555744.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/20129/original/wq2j34tm-1360555744.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/20129/original/wq2j34tm-1360555744.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/20129/original/wq2j34tm-1360555744.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/20129/original/wq2j34tm-1360555744.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sports science has had a big impact on the training and preparation of elite sporting clubs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Julian Smith</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A biomechanist, skill acquisition specialist, psychologist and performance analyst may work collaboratively to compile the objective information required to diagnose whether this is really true, and if so in what context, and provide the coaches with a plan of attack to improve that skill.</p>
<p>Similarly, the physiologist, recovery specialist, nutritionist, psychologist, physiotherapist and doctor may all collaborate on issues to do with a player’s health. Working as a collaborative team is one of the facets most sports scientists really value and provides the best method of providing the immediate peer review required to ensure any recommendation made to the coaches is principled in science, safe and legal. </p>
<p>While we might all be AFL club supporters, I wouldn’t want this to imply I barrack for Collingwood! Similarly, we are all sports scientists, yet our skills are as diverse as our taste in AFL teams – so let’s be careful how we pass the brush when tarring. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/12121/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Damian Farrow does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sports scientists have taken something of a media beating over the past week following revelations of alleged widespread illegal doping across Australian professional sporting codes. While this may be…Damian Farrow, Professor of Sports Science, Institute of Sport, Exercise and Active Living (ISEAL), Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/120912013-02-11T03:17:38Z2013-02-11T03:17:38ZDeny, deny, testify: the power of investigation to catch sport cheats<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/20118/original/zkrwdcwc-1360544661.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The interrogation may be mightier than the drug test when it comes to sniffing out cheats.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Syringe image via www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In terms of its narrative structure, the recent <a href="http://www.crimecommission.gov.au/publications/other/organised-crime-drugs-sport">crime commission report</a> on drugs in sport clearly owes a debt to Cluedo. The popular board game opens with a heinous crime: a murder has been committed. The aim is to determine the location of the crime, the murder weapon, and of course, the identity of the killer. When it comes to the ACC report, the reader is left to wonder: which athletes, which clubs, and which sports? </p>
<p>The widespread media coverage generated by the report is in itself surprising, since most of the allegations have been in the public domain for several years. For example, a 2009 <a href="http://www.regional.gov.au/sport/programs/adrp-griffith-university-4.aspx">survey</a> my colleagues and I conducted regarding public opinion about drugs in sport, found that the Australian public estimated that about 26% of elite athletes used performance enhancing drugs. </p>
<p>In a subsequent <a href="http://www.regional.gov.au/sport/programs/adrp-griffith-university-3.aspx">survey</a> of elite athletes, the use of performance enhancing drugs was estimated at 19%. In that study, elite AFL players estimated that within their own sport the incidence rate was just under 4%, and elite rugby union players put the figure at about 9%. News that doping happens in Australia is hardly news.</p>
<p>The absence of any specific accusations in the report has already generated <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/sports-demand-crime-commission-show-evidence-of-fixing-drugs/story-e6frg7mf-1226573914392">considerable unrest</a>, with numerous <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/come-clean-on-doping-julia-gillard-tells-clubs/story-e6frg7mf-1226574684378">calls</a> for the naming and shaming of offenders. </p>
<p>While some of the accused will publicly identify themselves, legal constraints acknowledged by the ACC mean that calls for disclosure will go unheeded by investigators. This means the report is in reality more akin to a press release (complete with colourful stock pictures) than a summary of a criminal investigation. </p>
<p>Investigators are not usually in the habit of forewarning suspects that they are under investigation. So one can either conclude that the investigation has stalled, and this is an attempt to generate new leads in the form of testimony and confessions, or that the evidence secured to date is sufficient and that charges will soon follow. </p>
<p>If the latter, then why the press release? One logical answer is that the scale of the charges will invite disbelief and the public (and possibly jurors) will need some convincing. Jeff Benedict’s <a href="http://www.upne.com/1555533167.html">research</a> in the USA, shows that sporting clubs and the public are often willing to accept criminal behaviour by sports stars. The ACC report may be the first step in a public relations campaign to ensure convictions. Another possible answer is that the ACC investigations justify the new methods of investigating crime in sport that were <a href="http://www.katelundy.com.au/2013/02/07/organised-crime-and-drugs-in-sport/">recently announced</a>. </p>
<p>The recent <a href="http://cyclinginvestigation.usada.org/">USADA report</a> on Lance Armstrong highlighted the “Code of Silence” that pervaded cycling, protecting Armstrong and other doping athletes. The use of silence, in the form of not answering the questions of an investigator, has until relatively recently, been <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/legal-affairs/right-to-silence-change-is-bad-law/story-e6frg97x-1226452092453">enshrined in common law in Australia</a>. </p>
<p>These rights, collectively referred to as the “right to silence” (including the right to avoid self-incrimination), are intended to safeguard the rights of the suspect. In the United Kingdom in 1994 the law on the right to silence was changed, allowing <a href="http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/a_to_c/adverse_inferences/">adverse inferences</a> to be drawn from a failure to answer police questions. To safeguard the rights of suspects, legal advice was made available by the state. In Australia, the Australian Crime Commission has <a href="http://www.crimecommission.gov.au/our-work/coercive-powers">coercive powers</a> whereby a person can be compelled to answer questions (but without the provision of legal advice). The use of such powers has considerable oversight, including a need for approval by the ACC Board.</p>
<p>In sport, the standard answer to accusations of doping was, according to Canadian sprinter <a href="http://www.iaaf.org/athletes/canada/angella-taylor-issajenko">Angella Issajenko</a>, “You deny, you deny, you deny”. Issajenko finally admitted her own history of doping at the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/02/sports/track-and-field-coach-tells-a-canadian-inquiry-johnson-used-steroids-since-81.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm">inquiry into doping by sprinter Ben Johnson</a>. She said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If the inquiry hadn’t been called, we’d be denying to this day. But once the inquiry was called, I knew we’d have to come out with the truth. It was over.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The need for anti-doping investigations to adopt <a href="http://www.wada-ama.org/Documents/World_Anti-Doping_Program/Governments/Investigations/WADA_Investigations_Guidelines_May2011_EN.pdf">police investigative protocols</a> was recently advocated by the <a href="http://www.wada-ama.org/">World Anti-Doping Agency</a>. </p>
<p>In their <a href="http://www.katelundy.com.au/2013/02/07/organised-crime-and-drugs-in-sport/">response</a> to the ACC report, Minister for Justice Jason Clare and Minister for Sport Kate Lundy detailed new legislation to strengthen the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority’s (ASADA) investigative powers, including powers to coerce testimony.</p>
<p><a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?id=MmHjKtIeiDwC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false">Research has shown</a> that legislative powers to coerce testimony are of little use if the investigators do not ask the right questions. Over the past 20 years we have worked with police forces to develop investigative interviewing techniques. </p>
<p>Investigators are frequently confident in their abilities to detect deception, but that confidence does not equate to competence. Investigators are prone to self-deception and without appropriate training, errors are possible. These include false negatives, where guilty suspects fail to confess, and false positives, where innocent suspects confess. </p>
<p>But even though the science of investigative interviewing is still in its infancy, the broadening of an investigative approach will undoubtedly improve anti-doping efforts. Doping athletes now have to evade biological detection systems, and they have to lie. The former has always been relatively easy. The latter is a whole new ball game. The cheaters are no longer ahead of the testers. The interrogators have assumed control.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/12091/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Moston receives funding from The Australian Anti-Doping Research Program. </span></em></p>In terms of its narrative structure, the recent crime commission report on drugs in sport clearly owes a debt to Cluedo. The popular board game opens with a heinous crime: a murder has been committed…Stephen Moston, Associate Professor in Psychology, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.