Were athletes actually robbed of Rio qualification?

Were some of the elite athletes of the country deprived of a chance to qualify for the Olympics because of a power shutdown at the Capital’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on Sunday?

Before the events started in the afternoon, yes surely they were confronted with a fait accompli: “Run your best, no matter what your timings are in the sprints, you won’t make it to Rio Olympics”.

The regulations laid down by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) for Olympic qualification state: “Hand timing performances in 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 110m/100m Hurdles, 400m Hurdles and 4x100m Relay will not be accepted”.

As such the AFI knew, at least the technical officials knew, that there would be little point in athletes gaining any timings in short races without a fully automatic timing system in place. Perhaps the media knew, too, at least those familiar with IAAF regulations, record ratifications etc.

One is not sure whether the athletes knew about the futility of clocking personal bests and Olympic standards when there was no power supply and thus no electronic timing system.

Blame game

 There is little point now in going through the blame game that was expectedly resorted to by the host, Delhi State Athletics Associaion, the AFI and the Sports Authority of India (SAI) for not having provided a back-up for electricity supply for a “qualification meet” of this nature. We can go on and on but it would not be of any use.

Should the sprint events have been cancelled since the AFI knew there could be no qualification? That would have been foolish. Why deprive athletes of a chance to compete? Moreover this meet was a good build-up exercise for the more important Federation Cup starting at the same venue four days later.

The power outage made headlines in the National dailies.  “Power failure robs athletes of Olympic qualification”. That was the crux of the argument in most of the reports.

Before the events started, as I noted earlier, yes it robbed them of a chance. But after the end of the events? Who were all close to the Olympic standards in sprint events? Or was there anyone at all? It may look easy when the difference is 0.2s or 0.4s but place it alongside a 100m timing and then see the difference between 10.1 and 10.3. Better still 10.1 and 10.10s.

It has been reported that both men’s and women’s 100m timings were better than existing National records and both also were better than the Olympic entry standards. But since there was no automatic timing system in place, both would be deprived of both the honours.

This is not a true description of the events or the timings returned by the athletes. In men’s 100m Odisha’s Amiya Kumar Mallick clocked 10.09 seconds. This was hand-timed. This should have been rounded off to 10.1s before it was cleared by the technical officials (chief timekeeper, chief judge etc) and passed onto the recorders and from there to the communications team and onto the media. Same with the timing of 11.23s clocked by Srabani Nanda, also of Odisha. That should have been 11.3s.

Just because modern stop watches provide timings up to a hundredth of a second it should not mean these are equivalent to electronic/automatic timings. Nor should it have meant that the chief timekeeper would pass on a timing measured up to a hundredth of a second and the recorder would also make it look as though this was automatic timing without re-checking.
Once you get 10.09s for a 100m it is taken for granted that this was automatic timing. On the other hand a timing given out as 10.1 would make it clear it was hand-timed.
Now if the media were pre-briefed about the power breakdown and absence of automatic timings and the resultant bar on Olympic qualification and provided these results as 10.1 and 11.3 in the official results sheets things would have been far better and different.

Media could have been briefed

It could have been done with an explanation that though these hand-timings may look to be better than the existing National records they indeed were not since a fully automatic time of 10.30s (National record in men’s 100m) was always superior to a hand-timed 10.1s and an automatic 11.38s (National record in women’s 100m) was clearly above a hand-held timing of 11.3s.

Would anyone have then reported that there were ‘national records’?

Or for that matter an automatic timing of 45.48s (achieved by K. M. Binu in 400m in Athens Olympics) has to be surely rated far above that of a hand time of 45.5 (rounded off to the next lower tenth of a second from 45.41s that was credited initially to Mohammad Anas in the Delhi meet).

In order to compare hand-held timings with automatic ones, athletics statisticians had devised a formula by which 0.24s was added to the 100m and 200m timings and 0.14s to 400m and above.

Though several of the Olympic Games timings were officially recorded as hand-timings, automatic timings, where available were later approved as “automatic” for those events including for example for the 1960 Rome Olympics. (It was not until 1964 that Olympics started using automatic timings but till 1972 Games results were given only in hand timings.)

Milkha's record

Rome was where the great Milkha Singh clocked 45.6s (hand) for the fourth place in the 400m. Later when the IAAF, guided by leading statisticians around the world accepted automatic timings ‘where available” and incorporated them within parenthesis to those results, it became 45.73 (not 45.74 the mark that could have been logical had the 0.14s conversion formula been applied to it).

Why this particular record of Milkha is being mentioned here is because of the controversy the subsequent national records in 400m created thanks to this “revision”. Milkha never accepted the argument that someone could clock 45.7-plus and still claim his record of 45.6 was bettered! Paramjeet Singh did that (45.70s) in Calcutta in 1998 and the AFI ratified that record. Any other dispute related to Paramjeet’s record is a different matter.

Hand-timings are nothing new in Indian athletics. We have had these for longer periods than most developed countries around the world. Sometime in the 1990s the AFI brought in automatic timings. Gradually, all senior national-level meets and then junior national-level meets were mandatorily timed with automatic system.

Hand-timings have inherent deficiencies. The time-keepers are actually expected to look for the flame/smoke from the gun (held aloft by the starter against the background of a black board) and not hear the sound before pressing their stop watches. You are not sure how many of them would be seeing the flame and how many of them would have pressed when they heard the sound. There is a considerable time gap if the sound determines the action of the official in the short sprints.

At the finish, too, there is considerable margin for error.

To have clocked 10.09s (10.1 hand) and then be credited, even if through the mistakes of the technical officials, with a national record, bettering the existing one of 10.30s is something that should not have happened at all. 

For comparison purposes, through the conversion formula, 10.09 will first become 10.1 (adjusted up to the lower tenth of a second) and then if we add 0.24s it will become 10.34s. Not good enough to beat NR of 10.30, and nowhere near the Olympic entry standard of 10.16 if we were to just compare these timings and not presume that hand-timings would be allowed for qualification.

Of course the IAAF does not accept hand-timings for sprints as entry standards for Olympics and World Championships etc, as mentioned above, and it also does not accept hand-timings for races up to and including 800 for the purpose of world record ratification. The AFI follows the IAAF pattern mostly, though there is nothing written down about ratification regulations.

That an explanation was eventually made to the media, despite having been supplied with the timings of 10.09, 11.23 and 45.41 was thanks to the intervention of the AFI Technical Committee Chairman, Tony Daniel, who was away in Kerala and could not make it for this meet in Delhi, but who was alerted about the discrepancy by a journalist, baffled by the news about a flurry of “national records”!

Suriya's record is legitimate

Now, a curious mention was made in several reports about the timing returned by Suriya Loganathan in the 3000 metres. Amidst the confusion created by the sprint timings, national records that were never set, Olympic standards etc it was also reported that Suriya’s 9:04.5 will also not be considered for National record ratification  purposes even though it was better than Molly Chacko’s existing mark of 9:06.42 set at the Hiroshima Asian Games in 1994.

Why should Suriya be denied her legitimate right for this distance, where an auomatic timing system is not mandatory, is not clear. Obviously someone made a mistake in informing the media. Unless there are other issues related to Suriya’s performance, the Tamil Nadu woman has to be credited with the NR in this event run occasionally in domestic meets nowadays. It is an early-season event for the distance runners these days to prepare for the tougher and longer races.

“Suriya robbed of record amidst confusion” would have been an apt headline.

In athletics, unlike say in swimming, there are no pre-designated qualification meets to attempt entry standards for Olympics. Any ‘recognized’ meet conducted by a national federation under the IAAF rules would do provided qualified officials and standard equipment were utilized. Thus there should be no question of either stripping the Delhi meet of the ‘qualification’ tag or informing the IAAF that such a tag has been removed. Had a couple of athletes qualified in say long jump or triple jump or discus would such a tag have been removed? (If it indeed had been removed!)

The participation level in a meet in which individual entries were entertained for the first time was pathetically poor. The standards too remained ordinary if we were to exclude the hyped up sprints and a couple of other events. Hand-timings do provide a rather distorted picture in sprints and that is what happened in the Delhi meet.

Amiya Mallick (previous best 10.51s), Srabani Nanda (11.58s) and Anas (46.66s) will surely be expected to look forward to the Federation Cup from April 28 to 30 to repeat their performances and make the cut for Rio. They will need to clock 10.16s, 11.32s and 45.40s. all through automatic timing system to make the Rio-bound team. It is a tough task.

Hopefully the AFI will have the power back-up this time just in case things go wrong again!

(updated 26 April 2016)

The meldonium conundrum

Has WADA thrown a lifeline to athletes who have turned in positive tests for meldonium as has been widely reported? Or is there a meldonium-linked amnesty as is being suggested by certain people and being debated in the international media?

Can Maria Sharapova greatly benefit_or benefit at all_from the latest clarification by WADA regarding ‘excretion times’ for the drug that was brought into international focus on March 7 last when the Russian tennis star announced that she had tested positive for the little-known cardiac drug?

These questions are being raised and discussed across the world following WADA’s fresh guidelines for pursuing the meldonium doping cases. The meldonium infractions have risen to 201 as on April 15. The numbers are unprecedented for a single drug within a four-month span of its inclusion in the banned list.

Unprecedented intervention

WADA’s intervention in such a short period of time after a drug being introduced into the Prohibited List, with detailed clarifications regarding thresholds to be pursued or ignored for a non-threshold substance is also unprecedented.

With some of the athletes and organizations questioning the ‘excretion times’ of the drug, perhaps WADA perforce had to step in and issue guidelines which has led to speculation about the basis of its inclusion in the Prohibited List as well as about the “escape route” that the “guidance” may provide to at least some of the athletes. WADA stated that several anti-doping agencies were seeking guidance and because of the “unprecedented situation” created by meldonium it felt the need to provide “additional guidance for the anti-doping community.”

Ukrainian athlete Nataliya Lupu was one of the earliest among the meldonium offenders to claim that even after stopping the drug a good two months ahead of the January 1 deadline, she had tested positive. She stated that she had been taking the drug for the past 15 years for medical reasons and thought she had stopped well in time to prevent a ‘positive’. It was the second doping offence for the former European indoor 800m champion.  She was withdrawn from the World Indoor Championships in Portland, US.

In the third week of March Russian middle distance runner Andrey Minzhulin made the claim that the Prohibited List was translated into Russian only in October 2015 and if the drug was taking as much as 100 days to clear from the system (as was being claimed at that time) then it would be unfair to penalize athletes if they tested positive in January 2016.

Manufacturer's claim

Around the same time, Grindeks, the manufacturer of meldonium, told Reuters that the drug had a half -life of four to six hours but “its terminal elimination from the body may last for several months”. (Half-life means the time it takes to reduce the concentration of a drug in the body by half).

WADA has now conceded in its note to anti-doping agencies that meldonium may remain in the system for “a few months”. It has issued concentration levels that could be considered for different periods. The fundamental rationale is if an athlete is claiming that he or she took the drug in October-November there is still a possibility of a positive test in January and the athlete deserves the benefit of some concession.

The cut-off of 1 to 15 microgram/ml stipulated for samples collected before March 1 may not, however, be too encouraging for those trying to find a way out if they had committed an offence. Nor would the 1mcg/ml (0.000001g/ml) limit given for tests done after March 1.

“In the case of meldonium, there is currently a lack of clear scientific information on excretion times. For this reason, a hearing panel might justifiably find (unless there is specific evidence to the contrary) that an athlete who has established on the balance of probabilities that he or she ingested meldonium before 1 January 2016 could not reasonably have known or suspected that the meldonium would still be present in his or her body on or after 1 January 2016. In these circumstances, WADA considers that there may be grounds for no fault or negligence on the part of the athlete” WADA notice stated.

“Based on the preliminary results of the aforementioned studies, this translates to urinary concentrations higher than 10 μg/mL up to 72 h (first elimination phase), followed by a persistent long-term excretion (second elimination phase) yielding concentrations up to approximately 2 μg/mL over the following three weeks. Long term urinary excretion below 1 μg/mL down to several hundred ng/mL can persist for a number of weeks and in the low tens of ng/mL for a few months,” WADA said. (1ng=000000001g).
WADA has recommended that proceedings may be continued if the concentration is above 15 mcg/ml since it would suggest recent intake of the drug. 

No blanket amnesty

This is not a blanket amnesty. It may turn out to be a lifeline for some of the offenders. It is difficult to guess what those numbers could be from among the 200-odd meldonium positive cases reported so far. Already at least 14 athletes in Russia and Georgia have had their provisional suspensions lifted because of the guidelines issued by WADA. There could be more that had not been reported.

Those who might have ingested the drug prior to January 1 and concentration levels show below 1mcg/ml would be reprieved when the hearing process begins. Their provisional suspensions would be lifted straightaway. Meldonium being a 'non-specified'drug a provisional suspension was standard. Because of the uncertainty over éxcretion times' WADA has now given anti-doping authorities the right to lift the provisional suspension in case ingestion prior to Jan 1 is firmly indicated.

The final decision on all these cases would be dependent on the outcome of the ongoing ‘excretion studies' which alone would be able to determine with some measure of certainty when the athlete would have taken the banned drug. The studies may well be challenged scientifically and legally.

“Cases where the concentration is below 1 μg/ml and the test was taken before 1 March 2016 are compatible with an intake prior to January 2016. If the anti-doping organization finds that the athlete could not reasonably have known or suspected that the substance would still be present in his/her body on or after 1 January 2016, then a finding of no fault or negligence may be made."

At this point all these could be sounding rather confusing. But once the hearing process begins and news gets out, we would be in a position to understand the implications of this WADA notice in a better way.

Sharapova's case

How much of an advantage Maria Sharapova might have following the latest WADA notice?

None perhaps!

The International Tennis Federation (ITF) has stated that it had taken note of the WADA notice and it would go ahead with a hearing for the superstar. The Russian tennis star’s provisional suspension has not been lifted, an indication as to how the fresh guidelines would have worked in her case.

Sharapova did not say she knew the substance was banned and had made sure that she stopped taking meldonium_prescribed to her by her family doctor for an ostensible cardiac condition 10 years ago_in October or November. On the contrary she told the media that she did not know meldonium was banned. No one had told her and she missed clicking a link in a WADA communication that could have given her the crucial information.

She did not say when she took it last. But as things turned out, one of her sponsors, tennis racquet manufacturer, Head, issued a statement on March 11 which stated, among other things:

“On this basis we conclude that although it is beyond doubt that she tested positive for the use of a WADA banned substance, the circumstantial evidence is equally beyond doubt that the continued use of meldonium after Jan 1st, 2016 in the dosages she had been recommended, which were significantly short of performance enhancing levels, was a manifest error by Maria. In the absence of any evidence of any intent by Maria of enhancing her performance or trying to gain an unfair advantage through the use of mildronate, we further conclude this falls into the category of 'honest' mistakes.”

The Head Chairman couldn’t have visualized how things would turn out when he issued the above statement.

WADA has said that in case an athlete admits that the substance was taken after 1 January or if there is “other evidence” that it was taken after 1 January, the proceedings would continue.

Can Sharapova now disown the statement by Head Chairman and CEO, Johan Eliasch, that the she was taking meldonium in small quantities even after January 1? It looks doubtful whether such an argument could be made convincingly before a hearing panel.

Much would depend on the concentration levels being returned in their urine samples by individual athletes including Sharapova. Also the eventual outcome of the ‘excretion studies’ that the WADA-accredited laboratories are conducting at the moment. 
We should not forget the capabilities of the lawyers who would be representing a majority of the athletes. This is a good season for lawyers, especially those who have the experience in anti-doping rule violation cases.

Efimova fails to get suspension lifted

With the Olympics getting closer there is understandable anxiety among athletes to get out of this “meldonium mess” and get on with competitions and qualification process.

One such athlete, Russian swimmer Yulia Efimova, 100m world breast-stroke champion, had tested positive for meldonium on a sample she provided last February. The US-based swimmer apparently told her coach that she had taken the drug last December.

However, as ill luck would have it (from her perspective) another test in January this year turned up negative, according to Swimvortex.

 Probably based on this evidence International Swimming Federation (FINA) has refused to lift her provisional suspension to enable her to compete in the Russian National Championships. Efimova, world number three, may still have an opportunity to make the Olympic selection if she is cleared of the doping charges. This is her second doping offence, she having served a suspension in 2013.

Just as the debate started about WADA’s wisdom of including meldonium in the Prohibited List immediately after the Sharapova bombshell, the latest WADA notice has triggered another round of arguments about how the agency goes about banning drugs.

People have called for conclusive evidence of performance-enhancement through clinical research before WADA includes any substance in the banned list. Russian President Vladimir Putin has gone to the extent of saying meldonium was never a performance-enhancing substance.

Critics and experts will continue to argue that WADA’s methods are arbitrary.

Inclusion of meldonium in Prohibited List

WADA, in the mantime, has stated: “The inclusion of meldonium on the 2016 Prohibited List concluded a long process conducted by the WADA List Committee between 2011 and 2015. This process, which included a review of the available scientific information and the generation of specific data (in particular via the 2015 Monitoring Program, which revealed a high prevalence of the use of meldonium by athletes and teams of athletes) ultimately led to the conclusion that meldonium met two of the three criteria listed at Article 4.3.1 of the World Anti-Doping Code (Code). In particular, claims of performance enhancement had been made by various authors, including the manufacturer of meldonium.”

The manufacturer, Grindeks, had of course denied when the focus shifted to it following the Sharapova announcement that meldonium was a performance-enhancer. Its inventor, Latvian Ivar Kalvins had also said, however, that he had developed the drug for use by Soviet troops in Afghanistan since operating in the mountains could result in lack of oxygen.

Is that not performance enhancing?

Someone will have to go to court to challenge the inclusion of meldonium or any other drug in the Prohibited List. WADA does not disclose all the selection criteria adopted for particular substances all the time. Nor has there been conclusive research about the performance-enhancing capacity of the hundreds of drugs listed by WADA. But it is always prepared to defend its decisions and in the case of meldonium it seems to have done its homework well enough barring of course the 'excretion' study.

One thing is clear, all of 200 athletes would not have been using meldonium either because they had cardiac problems or because they felt it was fashionable to use it. What could happen to it next year, without the controversy surrounding ‘excretion times’ is anybody’s guess.
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Click here for previous piece on meldonium.

(updated 18-04-2016)