How not to target a relay medal

There has been a feeling in Indian athletics that if India has to win an athletics medal in the Olympics it would come from the women’s 4x400m relay.  

From the 2010 Commonwealth Games at home when the team won a historic gold that feeling gained further credence. No one cared to remember that it happened to be the weakest field in memory in athletics in the Commonwealth.

Gradually, people at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and the Sports Ministry also started believing that a medal was possible in the relay in Olympics.

The hopes were dashed in 2011 when six of the top woman quarter-milers including three of the CWG gold medal-winning team were caught for doping. “Could they have been doping in 2010 also”, people asked. The doubts cropped up but no one really bothered, not least of all the authorities.

After protracted disciplinary proceedings that saw the case go through two panels in India and eventually the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), through an appeal by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the six women were suspended for two years.

Maken sacks Yuriy Ogorodnik

The man at the centre of the doping controversy in 2011 Yuriy Ogorodnik was sacked promptly by the then Sports Minister, Ajay Maken, one of the best sports ministers we have had in recent years.

Maken said he would not spare anyone who was responsible for the scandal.  “It is always the athletes who are punished and the others associated with them are let off scot-free. Athletes are banned and their medals are withdrawn but what of the coaches and the officials,” asked Maken.

Ogorodnik pleaded innocence before the Justice Mukul Mudgal enquiry panel which absolved the athletes saying that the coach had provided the contaminated supplement that led to the positive tests.

When the time came for preparing the relay teams for Rio Olympics, five of the six women involved in the doping episode were back. More significantly, coach Ogorodnik was also back despite much criticism from the media. He was back as the coach of the women and men’s relay quartets that were eyeing a qualification slot for Olympics.
AFI chief Adille Sumariwalla defended the Ukrainian saying the athletes had not blamed him and had admitted that they themselves had bought the supplement. The conclusions of the disciplinary and appeal panels, however, put the blame entirely on the coach. The athletes were given a lenient punishment (later overturned by CAS) only on the argument that they trusted the coach and did not know from where he got the supplement. They thought it was supplied by the AFI to the coach.

Who all were selected as probables

Let’s for a moment forget about the Ukrainian coach. Let’s look at who all were called as probables for Rio. The inclusion of Priyanka Panwar in the team for the World athletics championships at the last moment revealed the plans that the AFI had. Panwar had not competed in a 400m in 2015 when she was included in the team for Beijing. (Panwar is currently serving a provisional suspension for doping having tested positive a second time during the final attempt to make the cut for the relay team.)

Also included in the camp and in the batch to train in Antalya, Turkey, under Ogorodnik in October 2015 were Ashwini Akkunji and Chhavi Sahrawat, both having not competed in 2015. Sahrawat in fact had not competed in a 400m at the national level since 2013 when she had timed her PB of 53.85s.

Sahrawat was dropped from the final list of probables who went to Spala, Poland in May this year. But by mid-2016 the Sports Ministry had released at least Rs 48.69 lakh for her training expenses including Rs 13,53819 from the flagship project Target Olympic Podium (TOP).

Fourteen athletes were included among the probables for the women’s 4x400m relay team. Mandeep Kaur, one of the CWG and Asian Games gold medal winning team member who underwent suspension in 2011, opted out of the camp at some point, and was removed from the TOP scheme, but by then she had incurred an expenditure of Rs 21.82 lakh including Rs 564425 from TOP funding. She did not compete in any meet this year.

Yuriy's batch fails

The fact that no one from “Yuriy’s batch” made the top four in the women’s relay, which eventually managed qualification with a 3:27.88 in Bangalore on July 10, a day before the deadline, said a few things about SAI agreeing to AFI’s proposal for his recall. (The top four were: Nirmala Sheoran, Anilda Thomas, M. R. Poovamma and Tintu Luka. The fifth was 16-year-old Jisna Mathew).

The Ukrainian, it is learnt, wanted both Ashwini Akkunji and Priyanka Panwar in the squad for Rio but was over-ruled by the selection committee. Panwar was bracketed with Kerala’s Anu Raghavan initially when the AFI had planned to have a seven-member team with Tintu Luka also available as she was an 800m entry.

The AFI later realized that Nirmala Sheoran had to be named in the 4x400 as well after having qualified for the individual 400m. That meant just five other members could be chosen for the relay. Anilda Thomas, M. R. Poovamma, Debashree Majumdar, Jisna Mathew and Ashwini were named. Anu went to court against Ashwini’s inclusion since she had better credentials but couldn’t make it in the end.

Why did SAI agree to have so many probables for the women’s 4x400m relay team? It is not that a 4x400 team would be practicing baton exchange for six months or more! Or it is not that talent will suddenly burst out during a trip to Turkey or Poland, no matter that Ogorodnik must have been trying to work his “magic”.

Get selected even when you don’t compete!

Why were athletes picked when they had not even competed? Did SAI raise a question?

SAI surely needs a TEAMS Wing which can assess performances on its own, as it used to do in the past, and keep track of abnormal improvements so that it could advise NADA and get dope tests arranged. If the idea was to have a man like Ogorodnik back in command and allow him freedom to “produce numbers” by way of two relay teams (six members each) such a strategy was fine and would be okay in future too. But the results would be similar to that India achieved in Rio.

Even a man of Ogorodnik’s “touch” cannot get a bunch of women in the range of 53.5-54.5 to run 50.5-51.5. And the coach, according to insiders was planning to get a few of the women run below 51s this season. The best was someone outside the camp, Niramala Sheoran. And the moment she ran an awe-inspiring (by Indian standards) 51.48s in Hyderabad, the best by an Indian since June 2004, several people including this correspondent were convinced she would not be coming anywhere close to it in Olympics, forget about repeating it or bettering it.

Nirmala ran 53.03 to finish sixth in her heat in the individual 400m to bow out in the Rio Games. More importantly she had a split of 53.2 for the opening leg in the 4x400m relay. As for the others, Tintu Luka timed 52.2, Poovamma 52.24 and Anilda Thomas, on the anchor, 51.78.

The SAI or the Ministry should investigate why so many of the woman runners could not come anywhere near their personal bests even after months of training, supported by coaches, recovery expert, masseur etc, at enormous expenditure at home and abroad.

Ashwini who had a 52.82 PB for 400m (2011) had a season best of 53.98 in Bydogoszcz, Poland in June. She was not tried out in a competition closer to the July 11 deadline when others, who were better than her through the season, were asked to run, for example at the last GP meet in Bengaluru.

Jauna Murmu who had a PB of 52.78s (2010) clocked an SB 53.37s in Fed Cup in Delhi in April and despite the best of facilities and Ogorodnik’s attention in Spala, Poland, slumped to 54-plus in subsequent meets finally ending up eighth in Bengaluru in 56.01s, her worst in eight years. Mind you, she has a best of 56.88s for the 400m hurdles clocked while finishing fourth in the Asian Games in Guangzhou in 2010.

If the women at least managed to come 13th overall in Rio in a time of 3:29.53 (seventh in heat), the men fared disastrously. They were disqualified after coming seventh in their heat in 3:02.24.

The focus shifts to men’s team

Even before the men’s team clocked a sensational national record of 3:00.91 in Hyderabad the focus had shifted to it from the women’s relay team. There was talk of it getting India’s first athletics medal since Independence. No one was fooled by the national record in Hyderabad. Could it have been doping? "Faulty timer?" posed Digvijay Singh of the CNN News-18 on Twitter.

The hype with AFI presiden Sumariwalla forecasting a sub-three-minute timing for the men's quartet, was apparently kept up by coach Kunhi Mohammed just before the athletics events started in Rio if a report that appeared on the web is to be believed.

Speaking exclusively to Sportskeeda, Kunhi Mohammed said, “The boys ran 2:56.7 the other day, which is a good timing. If we want to be in the top 5, this is the kind of timing we need to register. It might be the fastest timing, but it will be a bit misleading because the best teams who clock 2:54 have not been running. That being said all the boys are running under 45.3 second splits, which is definitely top 5 worthy. Now they need to translate their training success in the main event.”

That mention about 2:54 was apparently to indicate that the best teams were yet to run this season, which was a fact. But 2:54?!

The US clocked 2:54.29 for the world record in winning the gold at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart. No team has clocked a sub-2:55 in the world since!

The 2:56 that the Indian coach mentioned about his team had run in training? That was not just good enough for a fifth place, but good enough for a medal, possibly good enough for the gold! (The US clocked 2:57.30 in taking the gold in Rio. Jamaica was second in 2:58.16 and the Bahamas third in 2:58.49.)

Only the Bahamas, in winning the London Olympics gold (2:56.72), has a sub-2:57 outside of the US beyond the 1990s. Of the total 13 sub-2:57 marks in history, the US has nine, Britain two, and the Bahamas and Jamaica one each.

It is interesting to see who all had constituted that world-record-breaking US team in 1993: Quincy Watts (PB 44.28, 1993), Andrew Valmon (PB 43.50, 1992, SB 44.13), Butch Reynolds (PB 43.29, 1988, SB 44.13) and Michael Johnson (PB then, also SB 43.65).

 Valmon ran a 44.5 opening leg, Watts had 43.6 on second, Reynolds chipped in with 43.23 and Johnson, who was to set a world record 43.18 in 1999 (bettered by South African Wayde van Neikerk in Rio with 43.03s), anchored in 42.94s!

The Indian men’s splits in Rio were Kunhumohammed 45.9, Muhammed Anas 45.1, A. Dharun 46.55, Arokia Rajiv 44.66. Only Rajiv was world-class; the others have miles to go to reach a level that can promise an Olympic relay medal. Yet, the team, even within the 3:02 range should be able to dominate the Asian scene in the near future. If it can manage 3:00.91 or around it will be unbeatable. All these are conjectures of course at this point.

But what should our coaches be targeting for through fair means in forming a world-class relay team?  Certainly not two runners with sub-46 timings and the other two with sub-47. You need three in the sub-46 range and one in the sub-45 bracket. Not a sub-45 relay leg but a sub-45 one-lapper.

The Bahamas, third in Rio with 2:58.49 had Alonzo Russell (PB 45.25, 2016), Michael Mathieu (PB 45.00, 2015, SB 45.42), Steven Gardiner (PB 44.27, 2015, SB 44.46, nine sub-45 career marks) and 37-year-old former National record holder Chris Brown on the anchor (PB 44.40, 2008, SB 45.56).

It was a mistake

“We made a mistake in bringing back Yuriy,” said an experienced senior coach while we discussed the disaster (barring a few exceptions of course) that Rio turned out to be for Indian athletics.

Mercifully, the Government’s line of thinking, according to sources, was to do away with the services of Ogorodnik as well as a few other East European coaches. They had failed to deliver and it was 'time for them to go' was the feeling.

In line with the Government advisory about avoiding training in countries with a reputation in doping, or in hiring coaches from such countries (that came a little too late for anyone to implement before Rio), the SAI has informed the AFI that in future the latter could look for some other countries than the East European ones. But distance coach Nikolai Snesarev of Belrus seems to have survived the 'SAI cut', going by this report. Since at least 1998 the East Europeans had been dominating our coaches lists.

But the Ministry and SAI would be better off in giving up this theory that our athletes could be susceptible to accidental ingestion of banned substances while training in such dope-tainted countries. The large majority takes banned drugs in order to improve performance; to attain qualification marks, and, if they can avoid detection, to win medals in international competitions. 
The belief that only some junior athletes and some department-level athletes indulge in doping might have also received a setback following the positive tests returned by shot putter Inderjeet Singh and sprinter Darambir Singh, both Olympic qualified athletes. The reported positive test of Priyanka Panwar and a few other cases yet to be brought up should convince everyone, if convincing is required at all, that doping is a big problem in Indian athletics and the authorities have to tackle it on a war-footing.

We can’t pretend that our athletes are turning in world-class performances at home and in places like Erzurum (Turkey), Bydgoszcz, Spala and Almaty, but are unable to come close to those marks while competing in Olympics only because of some miscalculation by coaches about peaking. If we do that once again, as we have been doing in the past, India may have to eventually pay a heavy price. Russian athletes just paid it in Rio.
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(updated: 07-09-2016)

Another contentious decision

The National Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel has issued another contentious decision. It has imposed a two-year sanction on an athlete who tested positive for steroid stanozolol in an out-of-competition dope test conducted by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) in April last year.

A steroid offence can get a lesser sanction than a standard sanction of four years but such instances are rare and such decisions are invariably based on irrefutable evidence and convincing arguments.

In the present case the decision, dated 9 March, 2016  to impose a milder sanction rested on the fact that the athlete had written down the name of the supplement that he had consumed and that, according to the hearing panel, showed he had no intention to cheat. It was presumed that the supplement was contaminated by stanozolol and it caused the positive test.

The standard sanction for a steroid offence under the 2015 Code is a four-year suspension unless the athlete can establish that the commission of the anti-doping rule violation was “not intentional” in which case it will be two years. For a ‘specified substance’ also the sanction would be two years unless the anti-doping authority can prove that the anti-doing rule violation was “intentional”. Steroids do not come under the category of ‘specified substance’.

This was a case in which the authority to pursue part of the ‘results management’ process was delegated to the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI). Just as in the case of two of the woman 400m runners in 2011, Mandeep Kaur and Jauna Murmu, this was a test conducted by the IAAF at Patiala. The athlete happened to be a national-level shot putter.

AFI delegates authority

Again, just as in the Mandeep-Murmu instance, the AFI passed on the hearing process to be completed by NADA. In the case of Mandeep and Murmu, along with four other quarter-milers, the eventual verdict of two-year suspension was handed down by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to which the IAAF appealed when the Indian panels imposed one-year sanctions for the steroid infractions.

The top Indian woman quarter-milers took the plea that they had consumed a supplement (ginseng) supplied by the foreign coach of the team and that could have been contaminated. The Sports Authority of India (SAI)_and not the NADA_got the supplement tested at the National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL) and the tests returned positive results for steroids methandienone and stanozolol. The women were finally penalized since they, according to the CAS arbitrator, could not establish “No significant fault or negligence”.

In the present case, that of the Chandigarh shot putter, the plea once again was he had consumed dietary supplement and that might have caused the ‘positive’ result for stanozolol since it could have been contaminated. The athlete stated that he had written down the name of the supplement in the doping control form and that, the panel was to crucially observe, was a clear indication that the athlete did not have any intention to cheat. The athlete argued, through his counsel, that he had always been taking supplements and had never in the past returned a ‘positive’ dope test.

Under the 2015 rules, this could have been a “contamination” plea and theoretically could have ended up with as little as a ‘reprimand’, the least of the punishments possible under article 10.5.1.2 (‘contaminated products’).

But it did not though the athlete’s lawyer did try to argue the case under “no significant fault or negligence” rule. But seemed to have been guided eventually by what the panel itself suggested.

The details of all the written submissions made by the athlete’s lawyer and NADA are not available. But the order by the panel headed by Mr. Ramnath does give a good idea about how the arguments went and how the panel arrived at its eventual conclusions and decision.

The order stated: “The pane has also deeply gone through the relevant citation of both parties, again the question of intention of the athlete is very material whether he intent (sic) to cheat. Here, in the present case the athlete from the very beginning i.e. at the filing of doping control form has mentioned of taking nutritional supplements, ‘Tri Troubles’ as athlete is not well educated it means that he had taken in fact ‘Tri Tribulus’ supplement and not the ‘Tri Troubles’. This substance is a nutritional substance which has a unique growth formula and is not banned rather it was recommended and purchased by Indian Weightlifting Federation by inviting quotations (photocopy of letter dated 11.12.2012 of Sahdev Yadv Secretary General, Indian Weightlifting Federation was filed from the side of the athlete wherein in the list of supplements at serial No. 23 Tri Complex Tribulus was mentioned). On the other hand, the Counsel for NADA did not show any document/evidence that this supplement is banned.”

Banned or approved supplements?

Several key points emerge from the above statement. The athlete had consumed Tri Tribulus, a herbal supplement derived from Tribulus terrestris. The panel has noted that the substance is a “nutritional substance” which was not “banned”. It was, on the contrary, recommended by the Indian Weightlifting Federation.

No one apparently told the panel that there is no “banned nutritional substance”. WADA only bans drugs and doping methods, not supplements. WADA also does not ban brand names, only generic drugs. For example, stanozolol is among the banned steroids, not Winstrol, one of the more popular drugs available in the market that contains stanozolol.

NADA should have told the panel that it cannot “show any document/evidence” that the supplement (Tri Tribulus) was banned since it was not in the business of either approving or banning supplements. Or for that matter WADA was not in the business of approving or banning supplements.

Quite often we hear the mention of “WADA-approved” supplements during dope hearings. There are no such supplements in the world. WADA warns athletes about the use of dietary supplements because of their propensity to get contaminated by banned drugs. All the anti-doping agencies including National Anti-Doping Organisations (NADOs) are also supposed to warn athletes about such dangers.

While guiding athletes towards the use of supplements some of the anti-doping agencies make it clear that it is ultimately the sole responsibility of the athlete to make sure the substance is safe.

Athletes are responsible for what goes into their systems. “I didn’t know “ can never be a clinching argument in a doping case.

Coming back to the order of the panel that took note of the mention of Tribulus in the doping control form, it goes on to say “…therefore the possibility of contaminated nutritional supplement Tri Tribulus which the athlete was consuming, cannot be ruled out, however the great burden lies upon the athlete to show that he had consumed contaminated supplement Tri Tribulus. The …Counsel for NADA has submitted that they have not filed any cash memo or not mentioned the name of the shop from where he has purchased and, therefore, he cannot be given any benefit of provisions of “No significant fault or negligence”. But the panel is of the view that it is very difficult for the athlete to keep cash memo etc as he was not knowing at the time of purchasing the nutritional supplement Tri Tribulus that it will contain contaminated supplement.”

What the panel apparently wanted to say in the last sentence above was the athlete couldn’t have known at the time of purchasing the supplement (Tri Tribulus) that it would contain a banned substance/steroid.

No testing of supplement

The main point here seemed to have been missed by the panel as well as NADA. There is only a claim that the supplement must have been “contaminated”. No one tested it! No one seemed to have sought a test! NADA did not ask for a test. The panel did not seek a test to find out whether the supplement was contaminated by stanozolol. The panel would have been within its rights to demand such a test. It did not.

The panel wrote: “However it is the duty of the athlete to explain how the prohibited substance entered in his body, for that to some extent he is able to show that contaminated substance stanozolol entered into his body through Tri Tribulus (emphasis mine) supplement which he consumed regularly. If he would not have mentioned Tri Tribulus supplement in the doping control form, the position would have become different and he would have been guilty of taking the said substance with intention to cheat. Therefore panel has come to the conclusion that the athlete did not consume the substance with intention to cheat and therefore the athlete case comes under clause 40.2 (b) of the IAAF anti-doping rules 2015 where period of ineligibility has been two years only.”

The panel obviously is uncertain about how the prohibited substance entered the athlete’s body. Otherwise it would not have stated “to some extent he is able to show”.

Precedents

There was one case in India of a female judoka who was reported for methylhexaneamine in 2012. She was exonerated on the argument that the substance must have come from beauty aid products. The decision was upheld by the Indian appeal panel, but was eventually overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and she given a two-year suspension.

Interestingly, NADA tried to bring in laboratory investigation report rather late during the appeal stage of judoka’s case but was not allowed. The lab report stated that MHA was not present in the beauty aid products that the athlete had applied. The company gave a signed statement that its products did not contain MHA. 
It was widely believed at that time that geranium plant and roots contained MHA. Later in another case, that of a woman swimmer, once again the theory that soaps, shampoos etc may contain geranium which in turn could mean MHA, was proposed and accepted. The swimmer was given a reduced sanction by an appeal panel without testing any product and without NADA advancing what was known to it through laboratory tests in the judoka's case.

In the present case the lawyer representing the athlete mentioned a couple of cases in the athlete’s defence. One of them involved a British rugby player who tested positive for 1-3,dimethylbutylamine, a stimulant, in an in-competition test. The player claimed that his positive test had come out of his use of a supplement.

Many of his arguments were accepted by the UKAD which did not claim that the player had used a doping substance “intentionally”.

The UKAD only pressed for a six-month suspension for the level of negligence shown by the player. It accepted that the prohibited substance had come from the supplement only. But before doing so, it tested the product from a tub of left-over stuff given by the player and the laboratory reported that the substance he tested positive for (dimethylbutylamine) was indeed present in the supplement.
The player received a six-month suspension. He was able to satisfy the panel that he had taken certain basic precautions before purchasing the supplement and consuming it.

There could be dozens of cases like these across the world including in India where either the anti-doping agency would have tested the supplement and found out what it contained or else a panel would have ordered such a test and satisfied itself what its ingredients were or else an athlete would have on his/her own got the tests done to defend oneself.

The mere presence of the banned substance in a supplement alone may not, however, help an athlete escape sanction or get reduced punishment since degree of fault or negligence would also be assessed if a 'no significant fault or negligence'argument is taken. That is what happened in the case of the six woman quarter-milers when their cases went up to CAS in 2012.

Had the substance been tested in this case and found to be contaminated the athlete could have fallen back on the ''Contaminated Products' rule introduced in the 2015 Code which might have enabled him get a simple ‘reprimand’ and no suspension.

His lawyer was keen to proceed on the “No significant fault or negligence” argument. But the panel stated, rather surprisingly: “The argument of the learned counsel for the athlete that his case may be taken under the rules of “No Significant Fault or Negligence” does not appeal to our mind, as the panel has already reached to (sic) the conclusion that the athlete was not having intention to cheat.”
A particular line of defence did not "appeal" to a hearing panel!

Pertinently neither NADA nor WADA (or IAAF) has appealed this decision which may well set a precedent about supplements use.
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Other recent debatable decisions:
Click here for Prescription v TUE
Click here for Same class of substance, two vastly different sanctions

Prescription v TUE

Can an athlete take testosterone without having obtained a therapeutic use exemption (TUE) from the authorities and eventually get a reduced sanction when he is tested and found ‘positive’?

Yes, he can. At least in India that is possible as has been established through an order given by the National Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel (NADDP) in the case of an athlete last February.

The athlete, a javelin thrower from Punjab, had tested positive for testosterone in the all-India Police Championships in November, 2014. His T/E ratio showed 13.0, well above the prescribed limit of 4.0. Isotope ratio measurement spectrometry (IRMS) analysis confirmed the use of exogenous (outside the body) steroid.

The athlete happened to be a second-time offender. He was handed down a three-year suspension for his second offence, the first one having come in 2009. That was for stanozolol, and he copped a two-year ban then.

The 2014 offence was also handled under the 2009 rules even though the final hearing in the case was held on 7 December, 2015.

Went by doctor's advice

The athlete’s defence mainly hinged on the premise that he had taken medicines as prescribed by his doctor. In his written submission he stated, according to the order, that he “was suffering (sic) from infertility and taking treatment…” The athlete also submitted medical records of his wife to support his arguments. He submitted that he had been taking medicines for his condition “much prior” to the competition in which he tested positive.

The athlete pleaded that he was “not well literate” (sic) as per the order and did not have knowledge of English medicines. His doctor apparently prescribed him Andriol Testocaps (testosterone in capsule form).

The National Anti Doping Agency (NADA) argued before a panel headed by Mr. Ramnath that the athlete did not obtain a TUE for the use of testosterone. It said the athlete had not disclosed in his doping control form that he was undergoing testosterone therapy.

It further argued that the athlete had taken nearly five months to submit his defence and the submissions made by the athlete were afterthoughts and “documents produced on record have been obtained by fraudulent means and should not be taken into consideration.”

NADA also argued that it was the duty of the athlete to ensure that no prohibited substance entered his body and it was also his duty to advise his doctor that he was an athlete and was bound by certain rules.

'Documents authentic'

The panel ruled: “NADA could not establish that medical documents of athlete and his wife are fraudulent/manipulated after athlete was found guilty of violating anti-doping rules 2010. As the perusal of medical documents of athlete are of dated (sic) 07-07-2014 and 10-08-2014 and 27-09-2014 and the consulting doctor is Dr…, MD, Consulting Physician. No evidence was submitted from the side of NADA to show these papers are frivolous. Secondly the medical documents filed by the athlete, of her (sic) wife were original and they are dated 30-06-2014…”

The order, dated 5 Feb, 2016, further stated: “The submission of NADA with regard to non-submission of facts of taking medicines at the time of sample collection while filing the doping control form or not obtaining TUE can be said (sic) maximum lapses on the part of athlete. As the athlete already submitted (sic) in written reply that he was not well educated and did not have knowledge of English medicines and hail from village farmer’s family (sic).”
(A TUE panel, normally comprising doctors, takes up applications for exemptions from athletes for use of banned substances on medical grounds. A TUE granted or rejected by an anti-doping agency can be reviewed by WADA.)

Case of a weightlifter in 2010

In a similar case involving a weightlifter who was also advised testosterone therapy for “infertility”, a disciplinary panel had ruled in August, 2010 that the contention of the athlete was valid and imposed no ineligibility.

On an appeal from WADA, however, an appeal panel headed by Justice C. K. Mahajan (retd), set aside the disciplinary panel ruling in July 2011 and imposed a two-year sanction on the lifter.

Almost simultaneously another case of an athlete, a woman sprinter from Tamil Nadu, had also ended up in similar fashion. That was a case of stanozolol usage, prescribed by a doctor. The disciplinary panel ruled in favour of the athlete; the Mahajan panel ruled otherwise. The sprinter’s stanozolol case was brought into the arguments by NADA during the javelin thrower’s recent case, but it made no impact. The lifter’s case was apparently not mentioned.

The Mahajan panel wrote in the order that imposed a two-year suspension on the weightlifter: “In order to eliminate or reduce the period of ineligibility the respondent has to establish that he bears no fault or negligence for the violation of the Anti Doping Rules and if he is successful then the period of ineligibility shall be eliminated. We are unable to uphold this finding.

“The question that needs to be answered that whether the respondent bore no fault or negligence. The respondent admits during hearing that he took substances that caused adverse analytical finding in the test. Therefore we can safely conclude that the respondent would have discussed treatment therapy with his doctor and its

effects in relation to the Anti Doping Rule violation.

“A sanction cannot be completely eliminated on the basis of no fault or negligence even when the administration of the prohibited substance has been done by the athlete’s physician/doctor without disclosure to the athlete. In order to benefit from an elimination of the period of ineligibility for no fault or negligence, the athlete

must establish that he did not know or suspect and could not reasonably have

known or suspected, even with the exercise of the utmost caution, that he had

used or been administered the prohibited substance.

Athlete's responsibilities

“In the present case the respondent did not establish that he took any

precaution or made any inquiry to assess whether the medical treatment he was following was free from prohibited substances. He did not either demonstrate having informed his doctor that he was an athlete, bound by a duty of care to avoid the ingestion of any prohibited substance. It is true that the medical

treatment was prescribed by the respondent’s doctor. However, the respondent

cannot hide behind his doctor’s ignorance of the Anti Doping rules in order to

escape from sanctions due to Anti Doping Rule violation.

“The medical treatment prescribed by the doctor does not dispense the athlete to control if the medicine he is prescribed contain prohibited substance. The respondent has not established that he exercised utmost caution and therefore that he bore no fault or negligence. The respondent has also not shown any truly exceptional circumstance to warrant reduction of the otherwise applicable period of ineligibility. It is the duty of the athlete to ascertain that the drug he was prescribed for a long period of time does not contain any prohibited substance. If the athlete fails to exercise this caution he should not get the benefit of no fault or negligence/no significant fault or negligence.”

A TUE for testosterone use is very rare in anti-doping parlance. Here in the case of the javelin thrower there was no TUE but medical prescriptions and laboratory investigation reports. Once again, as had been the case in several instances in the past, the “village” background of the athlete and his inability to read and understand the medicines prescribed in English went in favour of the athlete.

Sanction reduced twice

As for arriving at a sanction of three years for a second offence the panel stated: “…the only consideration left before the panel is to see how much ineligibility be reduced under Article 10.7.1 wherein a table has been prescribed for second violation (sic), therefore, for the second violation the panel is of the view to sanction (sic) one half of the period of ineligibility which comes to 3 years for No Significant Fault & Negligence in the table indicated below”.

The table is a reference point for administering sanctions under the 2009 WADA Code. Various combinations of offences have been given in the table. In this case it happened to be one of “No significant fault or negligence” (as deemed by the panel) in combination with a previous offence that could be described as ‘standard’ since a maximum sanction of two years was given in the earlier case.

Now, NSF (no significant fault or negligence) clubbed with ‘St’ (standard) on the table gives a sanction of 6 to 8 years.

The panel apparently came to the conclusion that this six or eight could be further reduced to half if “no significant fault or negligence” had been established.

That amounted to a reduction being granted twice over after having concluded that this was a case “no significant fault or negligence” and based on that conclusion this could be fitted into the 6-8 year bracket.

It is pertinent to point out here that had the panel come to the conclusion that the second offence was also “standard”, then a combination of two “standard” would have meant a sanction of eight years to life.

The panel had to understand from the table meant for sanctions for multiple violations that once the nature of the offence was determined by it as ‘reduced sanction’ (RS), ‘standard’ (St) or ‘no significant fault or negligence’ (NSF) etc and placed against the table to determine what could be the punishment for a second offence, there could be no further reduction except the range prescribed in the table.

In December last year, in a similar case like that of the javelin thrower, an appeal panel upheld the decision of a disciplinary panel which arrived at the same conclusions about reduction of the punishment under the “no significant fault or negligence” rule. In that case, also that of an athlete, it was reduced to four years though the applicable sanction was six to eight years.

Once the appeal panel had set a precedent, it was expected that other panels would follow suit though it was not a binding precedent.

(Updated 5 May 2016)

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.
*****

Click here for previous piece on meldonium.

(updated 18-04-2016)