Why You Shouldn't Believe Jones-3

Story by Eric.

(This is the third installment in a long series on Marion Jones, titled: "Why You Shouldn't Believe Marion Jones").

This is the final part of the forward to which you have been reading. I have respectfully called you here to review a case about a conniving woman who committed deliberate, pre-meditated first-degree unlawful choice to defraud the sport of athletics and the basis upon which it measures and grants honours for superior achievement, and, secondarily – if not simply for material reasons, about the same person’s lies to agents attempting to solve a separate complex crime.

You’ve also been called to connect the dots between her and a man who trained her to become what nature could not produce through her or any other of his dozen or so athletes who were ultimately locked into deceptive ways through their drug-taking and cover-ups. In having defrauded the sport of athletics, Marion Jones did – through a conscious objective – immorally and unlawfully collect honour, reputation and compensation bestowed upon victors and cause rightful recipients of such achievements to permanently lose the just reward for their hard work and achievement.

That she has cheated and been sentenced is not the point of this blog series.

This is a case about a woman who, with the aid of her then-husband and her former coach, did wilfully and by design craft a scheme of wrongdoings which abused a parameter-less trust level containing international, multi-dimensional and multi-cultural layers, and has not been called to justice for those offences which she has not made known; this is about a woman who, to this day, still is unable to speak truthfully and freely – despite what public opinions may have been gathered and swayed her way after two television appearances on Oprah.

And finally, ladies and gentlemen, this is also a case containing a consistent theme from Marion Jones’s former attorneys, namely one of reasonable doubt.

Marion Jones’s first set of attorneys had, prior to her confession of being a drug cheat, reminded the world time and again that there was reasonable doubt to trust the accuracy of tests and the veracity of testimonies provided by people who had accused their client of taking performance-enhancing drugs.

Throughout the course of this blog series you will see tricks they attempted to use to have people like you, whilst deliberating among yourselves at your places of work, amongst your peer groups or simply alone after reading a news story about their client, base your decisions about Marion Jones on a creed which states that should you have even a single thread of doubt about the claims made against their client, you would need to acquit her based on the possibility that your doubt was reasonable and true; their aim and goal in the history collected in this blog series will be to have you review each purported “offense” case-by-case, item-by-item and ask you, based on the sum of the parts if the whole was, indeed, infected.

Yet these same attorneys, having had legal precedence granting such permission, will not ask you to consider if the evidences Marion Jones had provided in her defence – up to, and including her claim of one shoe fits all – did, in fact, advance beyond plausibility any and all reasonable doubt that those evidences were true. Granted, it was not their job to provide you with proof beyond a reasonable doubt, as that is the job of those who are accusing her of wrongdoing. However, before Marion Jones was accused in a court of law of wrongdoing and found guilty by her own admission to the facts brought forth against her, she decided in a 2006 television interview to take one final stab at a proclamation of innocence – broadcasting that she was vindicated by a scientific test which wiped away suspicion from her once-and-for-all. Having done so, she opened the door of pretence even wider, forced immediate defence against such claims, and ultimately inherited the responsibility to provide factual information which could substantiate those statements.

And may I state in plain English, ladies and gentlemen, Marion Jones tendered no such offer of explanation until well past the hour of redemption in 2007. She decided during the meantime, rather, to hide behind obscurity and kept herself out of the spotlight to the best of her ability. Reasonable doubt is, in all actuality, doubt, and it is a reasonable basis upon which one can lay claim to being certain about guilt – as much as it is used as a basis for defining the certainty of a defendant’s lack of guilt.

Marion Jones has confessed of cheating – make that lying, but she has still left reasonable doubt available as to the veracity of her contrition, because her “confession” came about when she understood that keeping up with the Jones’s in the lie department would lead to a longer jail sentence – one where she’d trade the pin-striped suit she wore before U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth M. Karas for pin-stripes of a different variety in a concrete house far, far from home. Judge Karas, who was nominated to the U.S. District Court on 2003-September18 by U.S. President George W. Bush – and who had received a favourable rating from the American Bar Association, has historically not take perjury charges – those which hung over Marion Jones’s head – lightly.

Judge Karas was formerly known as an “al-Qaida expert” for his assistance in successfully prosecuting four of Osama bin Laden’s followers in 1998. He prosecuted as the U.S. Assistant attorney during the 1998 bombings of two American Embassies in Africa by al-Qaida members, and reminded the presiding judge over the case, Judge Sand, that one of the defendants, El-Hage, had had thwarted the federal investigation (words used today to describe the Marion Jones case) by perjuring himself before a Federal Grand Jury in 1997 before the attacks and in 1998, afterward.

Judge Sand, agreed with Karas, stating that El-Hage had committed perjury and that “the actions are what one looks to.”

The actions of perjury were what Judge Karas had on his agenda, and on 2008-January-04 he asked Marion Jones’s legal counsel and the prosecuting attorneys how much latitude he had in imposing consecutive sentences for the two unrelated criminal charges Marion Jones was facing. Ultimately, he chose to give her a six-month sentence, reminding Marion Jones that she was a role model, and that hers was a world-wide lie.

Judge Karas, who was nominated to his post by a count of 95-0 by The United States Senate, also did not buy the story Marion Jones told regarding her knowledge of performance-enhancing drugs, namely that they were provided to her by Trevor Graham without her knowledge. Judge Karas told Marion Jones that he was troubled by her statements and explanation about the drugs which she stated she didn’t know were in her body, stating that he found it “a very difficult thing to believe” that she “would not be keenly aware” of the effects those had on her results and her training as it occurred, and of what she put into her body.

“That's a very difficult thing to believe that a top-notch athlete, knowing that a razor-thin margin makes the difference, would not be keenly aware and very careful about what he or she put in her body, and the effects.”

Lying is an ill which tears at the moral fibre upon which society is based, and it is partly for that reason that Marion Jones was unable to be granted a non-custody sentence by the Federal government.

Marion Jones, having taken an oath before a officer in which a law of the United States authorised an oath to be administered, did not testify, declare, depose, or certify truly statements which had a material impact on their respective cases, and thus did wilfully and contrary to such oath state material matter which she knew not to be true.

Cheating is not lawful in the sport of athletics. Marion Jones may have had a dream of making much out of wasted opportunity and transforming herself back to an athlete who could dominate at will when she hung up her basketball shoes in the spring of 1997, but the laws which govern this sport do not permit anyone to cheat – no matter if they would never get caught.

Marion Jones, ladies and gentlemen, believed she would never get caught.

Marion Jones actively participated in a sport under oath to be governed by rules and regulations which specifically and categorically prohibit illegal aiding, tightly monitors supplements which athletes use to maintain their levels of fitness, and one which limits those of natural consequence, namely wind – a force of nature, to a specific allowance per second. Performances impacted by forces of nature which aid past an agreed upon approval are not accepted in her sport; performances aided by illegal products are undeniably and unequivocally illegal.

Lying and cheating, both considered criminal conduct according to Judge Karas, could not “be written off as a momentary lapse of judgment or a one-time mistake.”

There were no shortage of opportunities to receive the anti-doping messages sent out by her governing body, USATF, or USADA, which had made concerted efforts to inform athletes of the ethics – and consequences – involved in performance-enhancing drugs and their associate health risks.

They continue to make such information readily available to athletes today.

Marion Jones chose to ignore those multiple messages regarding her responsibility to conform to those initiatives, including an athlete’s newsletter – The Playing Field TM, the Athlete Handbook, and The Journey...the Struggle with Ethics in Sport – all printed publications all available through USADA – an entity which also has had specific internet-based anti-doping initiatives targeted at athletes and has held symposiums on anti-doping science.

There was a methodology behind that, namely that Marion Jones had already encroached upon the zone marked for safety between right and wrong – cheating and not, and with the mounting monies earned and prizes collected, there was no turning back.

And so it is that during your time here, you will read a logical progression of witness testimony which specifically and undoubtedly named Marion Jones as a cheat each and every time she declared she wasn’t, and you will read counter arguments from her attorneys stating that there were credibility issues with those who bore witness against their client – a frivolous tactic which eventually wasted time, money and U.S. government resources.

Each one of those vicious denials was an act of deliberate deception, however; those were mere distractions which had no basis in the truth and were designed to obscure the fact that Marion Jones was guilty of doping and cover-up of such actions. Marion Jones committed to these facts by an admission led by her own will, but the forces acting behind that admission of guilt had already been set in motion by prosecuting attorneys.

Witness by witness in this blog series will reveal information which not only implicated Marion Jones and made her complicit to drugs usage, but who also stated they had directly participated in Marion Jones’s performance-enhancing drugs taking or witnessed her doing so. Yet Marion Jones will not ultimately go down for taking drugs, rather for lying about having done so.

Ladies and gentlemen – my peers, inasmuch as I didn’t live inside of Marion Jones’s world as an athlete, nor as a retired veteran of the sport, I have asked myself on several occasions one simple question which I believed would warrant an uncomplicated answer, namely why would Marion Jones cheat?

Evidence on the surface points to a demonstrated and deep-rooted desire she had to win and attempt to become the greatest athlete in the history of the sport.

The underlying reason, however, were flaws in her character, namely deception and greed. Abraham Lincoln once stated that nearly all men can stand adversity, but if one wants to test a man's character, give him power.

Marion Jones had been motivated by money, power and their combined benefits – and spent her athletics life in selfish ambition of retaining those.

She, having the means to mask drugs over a period of time, had the opportunity to win a number of races. Those victories enabled her to command a large sum of prize money and appearance fees. Those also provided her lucrative contracts with sponsors in agreement that her name would help them sell more products and put more people in the stands at athletics meetings. The combined cycle of win-and-take took Marion Jones to the top of her world, she was labelled a leader, and she was also labelled one of the 10-most powerful black women of her time.

Marion Jones tripped over that power, however, and as part of the exercise you’ll undertake to connect the dots through, to and around Marion Jones, you will come to understand the process by which she was exonerated from a failed drugs test and the truth about the manner and fashion by which this exoneration was crafted and enabled; in other words, you will understand that the events which led to the revelation of that failed drugs test was a calculated cover-up to a much larger issue, and was used to mask another problem Marion Jones had been facing – one which greatly encroached on her continued pursuit of power, money and greed and caused her to finally slip and fall to the absolute bottom.

You will also read the expert testimony of hired men her attorneys brought aboard who were connected to the 2006 drug case in no other capacity than to refute the evidences provided by the laboratory which had, based on its extensive experience with such test specimens, declared an initial drugs screening positive for a banned substance commonly known as “EPO” – a drug which Marion Jones would later be connected to from an earlier time period.

This failure and diversion would be Marion Jones’s last in a career littered with hit-and-miss opportunities with the alphabet soup organisations attempting to catch her in a drugs scandal.

A great part of this volume of information is meant for the encouragement of those who may have long since believed certain improprieties had existed concerning Marion Jones, but who were awaiting due process to run its course before making public judgment calls based on those assertions. The EPO exposure, though it was crafted to exonerate Marion Jones, began that process for many of you insofar as it provided you with a more solidified basis upon which to make your judgments against her.

Anti-Doping Pressure Rising?

Story written by Eric.

UK Sport is putting together a new task force which it hopes will hit the anti-doping initiatives it has squarely on the head, drive out cheats, shore up the sport's fragile image with the public and prove to be a good opportunity for athletes, trainers and medical professionals in contact with each other to report suspected anti-doping violations according to a report in The Guardian.

John Scott, head of the United Kingdom's anti-doping authority, said that UK Sport currently attempting to develop start-up national anti-doping organisation independent of UK Sport that will place a much larger emphasis on intelligence gathering and investigation than current anti-doping measures in place.

"What we want to do is demonstrate through rigorous pre-games testing that we are doing everything that we can to prevent anyone who is cheating going to the Games," Scott stateed. "Whether it will be 100% successful we don't know but we are sending out very strong messages to discourage people."

The apparent message which will be sent out to athletes is one which sounds like it comes straight from a British spy novel.

The new agency, which will be functional before the Beijing Games begin, has a goal of having athletes keep an eye out on other athletes on the track and in the locker rooms; trainers keep a look out for irregularities in their groups which could signal one of their members breaking an anti-doping rule; and for medical staff - including trainers, doctors and anyone else who treats athletes to break out a state of what it is considering complacency and speak up when suspected drug abuse has occured.

"Tests will be planned using our intelligence-based testing approach which focuses the allocation of tests around where they have a maximum impact in terms of detection and deterrence," said Scott on the UK Sports home page (link).

"Whilst the overall aim is to test everyone at least once, obviously those in more high-risk sports or disciplines can and will be tested more often. Essentially there is no limit to the number of times we might test any individual athlete."

It all sounds good on paper to a certain degree, though there are some inherent risks involved as well as a margin of payback which must be factored in to the equation as well.

A track and field agent approached me two years ago regarding a prominent athletics group in the United States which had been notorious for what he considered breaking anti-doping rules.

Had the UK Sport inititiative been in place then, perhaps a few of the group members would have been caught earlier - and even more of them rounded up and suspended than the nearly dozen or so who ultimately were.

However, had this particular person had a bone to pick with the particular trainer or any of the athletes for whatever reason, he could have used this against the group and began submitting anonymous claims to the relevant agency to have the group investigated.

UK Sport will need to have a procedure in place which will weed out false claims and be able to truly understand which ones are of true significance. It will also need to be able to handle non-analytical positives whereby one athlete may make a claim that another athlete has spoken about illegal drug use or methods, has employed them and/or has requested the same of the athlete.

UK Sport is hoping that this initiative will gain thorough support from the groups it intends to market the idea to, and that the sport's image will clean up as internal accountability between the atheltes, trainers and medics becomes better. Their aim is to have a clean team compete in Beijing, and they hope that all finalists will have had deposited either a urine or blood sample prior to the Games.

Dwain Chambers' name naturally surfaces when discussion about catching cheats in sport - specifically in the United Kingdom - arises.

Chambers was part of the BALCO scandal which netted his main rival, Tim Montgomery, a ban from the sport and a stripped world record-title and time and netted Chambers a lifetime Olympics ban from his governing body.

Chambers travelled to the United States to train with Ukrainian Remi Korchemny, and became part of BALCO's illegal drug organisation.

UK Sport has been consistently and more openly in pursuit of information Chambers may have which can connect dots between other athletes and BALCO; other athletes and unknown suppliers; trainers and suppliers; and potentially medical staff with whom Chambers may have been in contact whilst under the doping regime. The belief is that Chambers has more information to provide the anti-doping pursuers than that which he has been fortcoming.

Victor Conte, BALCO's founder, has on occasion - and in no uncertain terms - stated that he would not ever reveal the identities of athletes who were caught up in the BALCO debacle but who had not been publicly brought to light. Chambers, who may have information on one or more of those athletes - or their trainers - from his time in California, would be a good asset to tap into, say UK Sport.

Conte and Chambers have both been willing to help out the cause of cleaning up sport, but Chambers' request appears to have too steep a price for UK Sport, namely re-instatement into the Olympic opportunity should he have the opportunity to qualify.

Will the new initiative find favour with other athletes who, unlike Chambers, have not been caught in a net of deceit, but have perhaps chased athletes who have been suspected of doping?

I don't believe the programme will have the stirring success it is attempting to achieve at the on-set, but it does have potential to be of terrific benefit in the longer run in the lead-up to London 2012.

The Beijing Games are only four months away, and, according to Conte, most world-class athletes who are doping (whether or not that is a large percentage of the athletes, themselves, or a smaller one is up to debate) finish their strength cycles in March. Any athletes who should test positive in the next few months would have done so by slipping up and using past the expiration date, so-to-speak.

On that front, there is a small hope that some cheats may get caught if they are left out to compete without any preparation on how to mask their drugs.

However, this is an apparently small percentage of athletes, and the fight to catch them will be more costly than the reward - though preventing any Olympian from shaming their nation before millions of people may be a just cause to make such pursuits.

Given time, more means and better opportunity to reach the inner circles in which athletes travel, the UK Sports initiative can have a greater effect of persuading athlete "A" to discuss with authorities the illegal events he (or she) knows that athlete "B" is employing to gain an advantage over their competitors.

Two of last year's surprise doping tests on Bulgarians Venelina Veneva and Vanya Stambolova netted positive results following what is believed to be a tip by an athlete or their trainer on their out-of-competition whereabouts.

Veneva had long been suspected of taking performance-enhancing drugs, but had never had an analytical positive result, hence leaving her performances simply up to speculation in the absence of proof.

There are other anti-doping measures out here in the EU which attempt to help athletes who compete clean to turn in those who they suspect are dirty. WADA has an initiative which permits athletes to leave anonymous tips, as well as does the IAAF - the governing body of track and field in the world.

Due to the lack of reporting on how athletes are caught, it is impossible to make a guesstimate on how successful the programmes are, however.

UK Sport's goal is to promote the highest standards of sporting conduct whilst continuing to lead a world-class anti-doping programme for the UK and being responsible for improving the education and promotion of ethically fair and drug-free sport, according to its website.

Ceplak Banned Two Years

Jolanda Ceplak, the world indoor 800m record-holder who tested positive for EPO at a meet in July 2007, has had a two-year ban upheld by her athletics federation, AZS, reports stated on Thursday.

Ceplak, who is 30, has likely lost an opportunity to ever compete for a gold medal in any future Olympic Games, as she will be 34 when the Games head to London four years from now.

Older age has not always prohibited athletes from achieving amazing results, but it has been a hindrance more than athletes have been able to defy it.

Ceplak set her current world indoor standard of 1.55,82 six years ago in Wien, and set her outdoor best - 1.55,19 - later that outdoor season at Heusden-Zolder.

Ceplak finished 2007 with a 1.59,86 run at Lignano Sabbiadoro.

Dick Pound's Righteous Fury Causes Lawsuit

Story written by Eric.

You either appreciate his hard stance or you don't.

Richard "Dick" Pound's subtlety has on more occasion than not been in serious deficiency, and he's been warned by athletes and their attorneys as well as entire sporting entities alike to pipe down on his negativity toward them without having proof to substantiate claims they had either complicitly participated in on-going doping or were covering it up.

Pound had even backed himself and WADA into corners at times due to his brazen style and in-your-face manner of speaking.

Pound has been a one-man marching band who's played a tune which strikes out hardly and loudly out at suspected drug-takers, and he has not been shy at defending a set of values to which he upholds the insitution of sport.

He has bumped heads with Marion Jones, and he's clawed and boxed against the entire sport of cycling, stating on occasion that they - like USATF (the American track and field governing body) - had been slow in dealing with apparently open problems within their sport and had not acted in good time to prevent further scandal from breaking out.

Pound's unrelenting nature has gotten him into an issue with UCI, who, on Thursday, released a statement that it was suing Pound before Swiss courts for "continual injurious and biased comments" against world cycling's ruling body and its president Hein Verbruggen.

"On many occasions Mr Pound has publicly questioned the extent of the UCI's efforts in the fight against doping," the short statement concluded.

"He shoots any target he can, left and right. I'm fed up of him discrediting my athletes," Verbruggen once stated of Pound following the 2003 L'Equipe leak which stated the way riders were notified about being tested allowed room for cheating.

Pound appears to be facing issues stemming from his having questioned the UCI's willingness to fully investigate a 2005 L'Equipe's accusation that Lance Armstrong doped and wondering whether UCI was merely looking to accuse UCI and use it as a "scapegoat."

Pound may (not) deserve the lawsuit he’s believed to have brought upon himself, this despite having been construed as being a brash, take-no-prisoners dictator. His goal is now - and has always been - to keep sport clean, even as he attempts to head to the vacant Court of Arbitration for Sport position open.

Pound believes in clean sport, but has less belief in athletes' ability to play within the rules - and between the lines.

"Here’s the deal," he says.

"The shot-put weighs this much. The race is so many laps long. You can’t hollow out your shot-put and make it 12 pounds instead of 16. You don’t start before the gun. Run 11 laps instead of 12.

"And part of the deal is don’t use these drugs. It’s kind of an affirmation when you show up at the starting line. You are making an affirmation that you are playing the game the way it is supposed to be played.”

Pound may have had justice on his side through WADA as far as world-wide disciplining is concerned, but the UCI is taking Pound to a justice department in Switzerland for disciplinary procedures for flapping off at the mouth - a tool which he has used to state in no uncertain terms that he has believed the USA had drug issues it had swept under the rug.

Pound has made no secret that he believes the USA is involved in cover-ups, especially when it comes to Carl Lewis having tested positive for low levels of drugs found in Sudafed, and being permitted to participate in the 1988 Olympics, nonethless.

Pound considers the Lewis affair one of an anti-doping violation, and Lewis' participation in Seoul illegal.

Pound, engaging the United States directly – one of his biggest targets in the fight against doping due to what can be perceived as cover-ups, sounded off in a New York Times piece dated 2007-January-7, stating:

“There aren’t too many people who are prepared to point the finger at America and say: ‘Hey, take off the [expletive] halo. You’re just like everybody else.’ That’s a problem in America. America has a singular ability to delude itself.”

On another occasion last year, Pound told the UK Telegraph:

"It's a matter of confronting cheating when you see it," he says.

"There is organised cheating going on and it's not going to go away if we all hold hands and say 'ummmm'. These are people who know the rules and in 99.9 per cent of cases they don't give a shit about them. They're destroying sport and taking rewards away from fellow athletes.

"If you're not being confrontational, you're not doing your job. Being confrontational, you're going to attract some static. It's like when you're fighting. The most dangerous time for any boxer is when he's just scored a very good punch. It's the retaliation you've got to look out for. I'm happy to be known by my enemies. Nobody who is playing fair is mad at me."

One question which arises, however, is what kind of fingerprint he wants to leave on the sport of athletics, and what kind of legacy he will have left imprinted on sport in general if UCI has their way and has a muzzle put on Pound.

Pound has an opportunity to help rid the sport of cheats and uncover the other BALCO types out there, namely other lines of chemists, coaches, athletes and trainers who are involved in doping schemes hidden to the outer circle looking in.

He has changed a bit over the past year, meeting Victor Conte in January and going over war stories and strategies to build a better, more viable drug-testing method to test the crooks.

However, if he continues pressing on at all costs in a solo fashion - destroying chains of command in the process - folks will be less than willing to point him in the right direction, and he may be taken to town again by less enthusiastic folks than UCI.

Sport, according to the ancient Greek tradition, was broken down into two elements within the participants: the harmonious development of mind of body - agon, if you will, and arête - the conscious ideal of perfection.

Athletics - along with other sports within the Olympic movement - can be restored to a more even playing ground where athletes are competing clean over time, and the harmony between the pursuers and those pushing the envelop to cheat is smoothed out.

As more wisdom is applied to the fight against doping, and athletes are held even more accountable for their crimes against the sport, fans can appreciate sport for what it is: entertainment and excellence.

In order to effect this change - where mind and body develops naturally in the absence of drugs, Dick Pound would be of better service if he continues his fight quietly - away from the headlines - and not create a perception of being a one-man show.

If he is unsuccessful, and his desire to stand at the centre can not be quashed, folks will lose faith in the organisation as a whole - when it is Pound with whom they have their disagreement.

One thing is for certain, however, Pound, a tax attorney, won't be afraid to stand before a court full of his peers.

Pound photo #2 courtesy of Wired Magazine

WADA Appeals Jenkins Doping Reversal

Story writen by Eric.

American sprinter Latasha Jenkins, who won an appeal in December to return to athletics following a drug ban, has had her ruling challenged by the World Anti-Doping Agency according to wire reports today.

Jenkins, 30, who trained under disgraced coach Trevor Graham, tested positive for metabolites of the anabolic steroid nandrolone at the KBC Knight of Athletics in Belgium on 2006-July-22, and faced a two-year ban from the sport by the United States Anti-Doping Agency.

Jenkins, a 200m sprinter with a 22,29 personal record, had never tested positive for any illegal substances under IAAF or USADA testing custody prior to this occasion. She agreed to begin the ban on 2006-October-23 following her "B"-sample notification.

A three-person North American arbitration panel ruled on 2008-January-25 against USADA on a technicality, exonerating Jenkins due to both European labs (Ghent, Belgium and Köln ("Cologn", Germany) -- which conducted the sample tests -- having violated international requirements that the tests be run by two different technicians.

USADA is the independent anti-doping agency for Olympic related sport in the United States. It was created as the result of recommendations made by the United States Olympic Committee's Select Task Force on Externalization to uphold the Olympic ideal of fair play, and to represent the interests of Olympic, Pan American Games, and Paralympic athletes.

This was USADA's first arbitration loss against 35 victories since the United States Olympic Committee created it eight years ago.

Jenkins has not escaped the issue of how the nandrolone entered her body, however, and it is a fact which WADA, the world's anti-doping body with higher reach than USADA, appears ready to have further considered with CAS - the binding decision-makers of arbitration cases in sport.

Jenkins had her findings set aside, because of the testing violations and USADA's inability to demonstrate that the breaches did not undermine the validity of the test results.

USADA had maintained that the Cologne laboratory's collaboration of Ghent's findings was strong evidence of a doping violation, but the panel was not satisfied insofar as both laboratories committed protocol violations in their discovery work.

According to Jenkins' attorney Michael Straubel, the lab in Ghent analyzed the sample with gas chromatograph/mass spectrometry, the basic method of finding steroids.

The Cologne performed a carbon isotope ratio analysis, used to determine whether the substance involved is naturally occurring in the body or from an external source.

At issue was that officials at both laboratories violated specific sections of the International Standard for Laboratories which would ensure that different people would carry out parts of the test which measure quantitative measures. The same analyst at the Ghent laboratory handled the "A"- and "B"-samples, and, moreover, the same condition occured at the Cologne laboratory.

Asked following the exoneration why both labs would have made the same mistake in using only one technician, Straubel said, "They thought the rule was unnecessary and they complied with it in what proved to be an inadequate way."

The nandrolone was initially discovered eight days after Jenkins' 125ml urine sample was express-shipped from the collection spot at the meet to the WADA-accredited laboratory in Ghent - a time frame within the universal protocols set in place.

The IAAF, who were immediately alerted of the positive "A"-sample analysis, requested the the reserved portions of the "A"-sample be tested as soon as possible, with the WADA-approved laboratory in Köln, Germany (the "Cologne" facility) to retest and perform an analysis.

The Cologne laboratory discovered a similar finding, and alerted IAAF on 2006-August-8 that Jenkins' values of norandrosterone indicated an application of nandrolone and nandrolone pro-hormones.

Six weeks following the "A" test, the Ghent facility performed analysis on Jenkins' "B"-sample, concluding after the three separate analyses done that Jenkins' urine did contain Norandrosterone which clearly crossed the "positive" threshhold.

Straubel expressed shock and concern that the case had been appealed, believing that the errors were of grave nature, and the exoneration mandatory.

Experts on hand during the American arbitration stated that had Jenkins' sample been tampered with at the Ghent laboratory during the derivitization stage, it would not have triggered a positive, adverse finding, because the urine at the Cologne laboratory came from a separate bottle, and preceded the Ghent testing.

Jenkins, who has not competed since being exonerated by the American panel, is one of 11 track and field athletes under Graham's guidance who have tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs.

Graham, who is due to stand trial in United States Federal court in June for obstruction of justice charges stemming from an allegation he made false statements to investigators in the year-old BALCO scandal, has maintained that he has had no knowledge of any of his athletes using steroids - a claim which Marion Jones called into question when she confessed last October to using drugs Graham provided her.

________________________________________________

Trevor Graham-coached athletes who have been banned for steroid use:

• Michelle Collins: Banned for eight years – later reduced to four years – by a panel of members of American Arbitration Association and the North American Court of Arbitration for Sport. However, Collins was found to have used EPO, THG and a testosterone cream based on evidence collected in the BALCO investigation and presented to CAS. She reluctantly conceded her guilt after a fierce word battle with USADA. Collins surrendered her first-place finish in the 200m at the 2003 USA Indoor Championships, and also her 100m victory at the 2003 USA Outdoor Championships.

• Justin Gatlin: Proposed eight-year ban for second doping offence after testing positive for testosterone during Kansas Relays in April 2006. First offence (2001-June 16-17) was for a banned substance (an amphetamine) found in medication – a ban the IAAF reduced. Gatlin did, however, surrender his victories in the 100m, 200m and 110m hurdles at the USA Junior Championships where the positive test was discovered. Gatlin’s legal team working on “special circumstance” clause to prove Gatlin had drugs in his body without his knowledge.

• Alvin Harrison: accepted a four-year ban for drug violations, admitting to USADA accusations of him having used testosterone, THG, HGH and erythropoietin (EPO) between 2001-June-1 and 2004-October-18. He surrendered all his competitive results for this period, but not before stating that his attorney would file a lawsuit against USATF which upheld cheater Jerome Young’s doping appeal until it was overturned by CAS in June 2004.

• Calvin Harrison: Handed a two-year suspension by USADA for a second positive modafinil test, and was stripped of his 2nd-place finish in the 400m at the 2003 USA Track & Field Championships (2003-June-21). The first was a result of pseudo ephedrine usage as a junior athlete.
  

• C.J. Hunter: Banned for two years in 2001 after his announced retirement in 2000. Failed four tests for nandrolone in the summer leading up to the Sydney Olympics.

• Patrick Jarrett: Banned two years in 2001 after testing positive for Stanozolol at his national championships.

• LaTasha Jenkins: Tested positive for metabolites of the anabolic steroid nandrolone. Faced a two-year ban. A three-person North American arbitration panel ruled against USADA on a technicality, exonerating Jenkins due to both European labs (Ghent, Belgium and Cologne, Germany) which conducted the sample tests violated international requirements that the tests be run by two different technicians. WADA filed an appeal on the case to CAS on 2008-February-19.

• Marion Jones: Accused of taking EPO based on an “A”-sample test conducted in June, 2006. “B”-sample findings exonerated Marion Jones based on the discrepancy between the “A”- and “B”-samples.

• Marion Jones: Confessed in October 2007 of having taken drugs under Graham’s watch, with Graham having provided her drugs without her knowledge starting in September 2000.

• Dennis Mitchell: Suspended two years by a three-member IAAF panel which had ruled that a test of Mitchell’s urine had proved he was taking banned steroids. A United States panel had cleared him of the same charge.

• Tim Montgomery: Banned for two years without a positive test based on information released by the U.S. Senate to USADA, whereby he told the grand jury that Victor Conte gave him weekly doses of THG in 2001. He testified that he used the banned substance for eight months, part of the information of which was corroborated by information banned sprinter Kelli White provided in testimony during the BALCO investigation. Banned from 2005-June-6 to 2007-June-6 and was stripped of his world-record (9,88 seconds).

• Jerome Young: Banned for lifetime after a positive test for EPO in 2004-July-23 at a meeting in Paris. The EPO incident is not known to be related to BALCO. Young had been exonerated by the USATF Appeals Panel allowing Young to compete in the Sydney Olympics after Young had a positive test for nandrolone (1999 USA Outdoor Championships) overturned by the results of a negative test six days later, and negative tests 14 days before the positive. CAS overturned the ruling and Young surrendered all results from 1999-June-26 to 2001-June-25.

Can Conte Clean Up Athletics?

Story written by Eric

Victor Conte has worn a lot of hats in his professional life, but nothing like the larger than life one he's trying on at newspaper outlets near you.

Conte has also worn several labels across his chest of late, with the latest outing another peculiar one in which the former bass guitarist was seen bearing the letter "S" whilst seated with long-time adversary Dick Pound, the former head of WADA.

Conte, a former musician who turned into an overnight nutritionist, has been periodically called a liar, a cheat, a serpent and a thief by some very grown-up men within the United States government who wield powerful job titles and appear fuelled by a supply of natural, non-synthetic testosterone.

That's the mild version for the PG-13 readers.

I doubt Conte's life ambitions are to demonstrate how well he can squirm on his belly -- especially with his company, SNAC, raking in considerable amounts of cash and Conte reaping the benefits. So there must be another explanation for the label and hat Conte has been seen wearing with greater frequency over the past six weeks.

Consider that he's also been called a very bad man for luring unsuspecting athletes away from natural hard work and sweat into a life of lies, lies and more lies mixed together with a cover-up or two in an effort to level out a playing field in athletics he believes is littered with illegal drugs.

He's also been labeled self-serving and unappreciative of the spirit of true competition, and has been cast off as a bitter man whose true interests in sport are in plaguing the purity of the Olympic games.

So what does that solid-colored "S" planted above Conte's chest represent?

That "S" jumps out at a person very suddenly and without fail each and every time drugs controversy within athletics sprouts up and every conceivable tie between performance-enhancing drugs is made between an athlete caught for doping and Conte, the brain-child behind one of the most prolific and previously well-kept doping secrets in all of professional sport.

The phenominem occurs as though Conte, 58, has somehow mysteriously become omniscient, and he has been given an elevated, god-like status as a result of it.

Conte gets the call when a Dwain Chambers-type returns from a drug ban -- from using Conte's products, nonetheless, and gets on a black list rather than an "A" list within European meet organizers' athletics events.

He chimes in when a Marion Jones quacks for mercy in a courtroom only to be ushered off to six months of day-care 100 miles from her home instead of a slap on the wrists and probation.

It seems every time a track athlete is caught up in a moment of controversy and drugs are involved, Conte has his nose in everyone else's business but his own -- unless shedding light on the drug problem has become his business.

Conte was jailed in 2003 for improprieties relating from his illegal and immensely popular BALCO dealings with sports stars ranging from major league baseball players to track and field athletes, and professional cyclists to NFL stars.

He spent a total of eight months under lock and key -- four at a minimum-security prison camp, and four home-confined.

He stated to journalists after Judge Susan Illston sentenced him that he had hoped he could turn around the incredible amount of wrongdoing into positives for athletes and the fans who watch them compete, and even asked the current sitting President of the United States of America, George W. Bush, to intervene on his behalf so that Conte could make a concerted effort to help America send a "clean" team to Athens to compete in the Olympic Games.

"It is said that I have become the poster child for the wrongdoing in Olympic as well as professional sports," he said outside the court. "Ironically, I find myself as someone qualified to help solve this problem plaguing sports, precisely because I've been a major contributor to the controversy."

So does that make Conte, who has since moved on from BALCO and become a fixture within the sport, a savior, a sinner or a saint?

Try Superman.

Among the many labels Conte has had pegged on to his character, he has also been labeled an opportunist -- a man who rarely misses a step or a beat when occasion lends itself for him to capitalize and make good on his talent to sell.

Perhaps that is what Conte is now doing to whoever will sit and listen, namely selling them on a similar notion he asked former athletes to purchase for a price -- one which saw many of them lose honors, prizes and esteem once they were discovered to have cheated.

Conte's pitch today, however, isn't that one must cheat to win, rather that the current state of testing for performance-enhancing drugs is unacceptable, because the testers are completely off key in their pursuit of the cheaters.

Track and field is suffering a critical blow with a public which believes just what people like Conte are stating, and what scribes are printing, namely that superstar athletes compete dirty and will continue to do so until someone steps up to their calling and helps turn over all the stones where the athletes, their coaches and their distributors are hiding their stashes.

Conte believes he is just the one for the job, supported by the following story.

Conte has been an eyewitness not only to the effect drugs can have on athletes, but has keen experience hiding out and waiting for time to pass on, for drugs to pass through, and for athletes to pass tests over and over and over again to their heart's content and to his own personal satisfaction with helping enable the deception to have remained covered.

Conte made the following remark recently when Chambers recently made news for an over-blown story, which has embarrassed UK Athletics and the British Olympic Association.

"I still think there is rampant use of drugs out there. It can be cleaned up but they have to use people from the other side, like Dwain and myself, and use the knowledge we've gained. Then, when athletes truly believe it is much more difficult to circumvent the testing, you'll see far more performances by athletes who are doing it with hard work as opposed to chemical substances."

Indeed, athletes and coaches, trainers and even agents do know where the minefields are, and they know which steps must be taken in order to successfully navigate through them. Is it possible that such persons, working on their own initiative following drug bans, could be of use to anti-doping organizations in their fight to stamp out drugs in sport?

Perhaps they can, but in Chambers' case, his federation believes it can be done outside of the track and away from the field.

Is it likely that Conte, on the other hand, who doesn't lace up spikes to sprint down a track at breath-taking speeds, can be Superman in this story and help the World Anti-Doping Agency and the United States Anti-Doping Agency run faster than a speeding cheat and leap tall buildings to catch up to them?

Pound, who had ridiculed Conte in the past for littering the sport with druggies and copping out by not testifying in his trial about his affairs, met with Conte on 2007-December-7 to shed light on such matters.

According to both parties involved, the meeting they had was productive, and both men looked forward to sharing more as time elapsed and cards began to fall into place.

Conte has helped athletes cheat, and he has helped those athletes cover up their sins against the sport. He is a convicted criminal with a felony record, and has had his life temporarily interrupted by the Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Prisons and the California Corrections, Probation Department.

He is also a man who says he is sitting on a wealth of important information, and he seems willing and ready to spread his sermon to whoever has the time, patience and willingness to listen.

Will track and field, which is scratching for respect, find ties with Victor Conte which positively bind and won't snap?

Stay tuned to find out.

Forgive and Forget? Not So Fast Marion

Story written by EPelle

I bit down hard on my tongue during Marion Jones's televised "confession" about having lied to U.S. Federal agents conducting two separate investigations into improprieties in which she had been involved -- actions, which, according to her, were "stupid".

I held my breath -- or withdrew my fingers from writing, that is -- for two weeks on the topic until reading through enough of the "Forgive Marion, she's only human" articles to be able to skip church for the rest of the year -- columns written by writers who'd jumped on the Marion Jones bandwagon long, long past the point of even being able to understand the complexity of that staged event.

Sure, we've all come up short at times in our lives - I am no exception to this rule of human nature.

However, there is a line between falling short of an expectation on one or several occasions -- even over a lifetime -- and making an attempt to feed lies to diminish the value of that expectation as Marion Jones had done her entire professional career prior to "retiring" (read: "forced exit").

The only thing silly about the entire made-for-tv moment was the absolute waste of time Jones made it in providing a few words meant to be taken as an explanation for her motives for lying and revealing all she knew about cheating -- in this case, absolutely nothing.

Marion Jones stated that all she'd done was cover up a couple of small, little details about a simple little check her ex-boyfriend (and father of her first child), a dope cheater, himself, deposited into her account in the amount of $25.000 as part of a money laundering scheme to which he plead guilty, and only told a little white lie to a couple of I.R.S. agents when she'd sworn an oath to secrecy about flaxseed oil that a big, bad man named Trevor Graham had told her to keep to herself.

Previously a lawsuit-wielding, outspoken defender of (mis)truth, Marion Jones was now stating that she'd fallen off her high horse, was victimised by a bad apple and played a small, insignificant part in a couple of items considered foul play.

All of that power she attempted to wield the past four years over the authorities chasing her trail -- the USADA -- is now, suddenly, to have been nothing more than (or should that be less than) hot air in her fists if one is to buy the notion that she was able to shake them with great might at pursuers of truth and lie straight to their faces, but could not demonstrate power to say "no" to a person of bad favour, Trevor Graham.

Graham tricked her, she said, and she simply lied to save her career.

Her career, my friends, is one which had encompassed travelling the world on advertisers' budgets; staying at hotels under the money meeting arrangers saved for their expensive guests of honour; being paid enormous amounts of appearance fees to grace their tracks; leaving those tracks with even more money in bonuses for breaking records and running fast times; and winning prestige, honour and fame by method of deceit and fraud. It also meant meeting dignitaries, having a stadium named after her and being named to a U.S. Presidential Advisory Committee by George W. Bush.

That about sums it up for Marion Jones's 9-5 job.

Her second one involved shopping and spending the money in such a way as to continue with the lifestyle she'd grown accustomed to as she sneaked around the world in plain day as a cheat and laughed her way to the bank believing no one would ever find out.

We found out about her moonlighting, because her former coach, Dan Pfaff, was stiffed on a sum in excess of 200 large by Jones, and he sued her to collect money she owed him -- not the first time Marion Jones has been through the halls of justice in matters concerning non-payment of monies owed.

"You made some good money. Where did that money go?" Pfaff's attorney, Eric Little, asked Jones earlier this year in a Texas courtroom according to the Los Angeles Times.

"Who knows?" Jones replied. "I wish I knew. Bills, attorney bills, a lot of different things to maintain the lifestyle."

Going broke with that money -- which was not hers to use -- caused her to lose a couple of houses and get exposed as a pauper. It also called for an arduous process by the IAAF to attempt to recoup years of monies she was paid under false pretenses.

Marion Jones didn't tell you about the tens of millions she amassed in wealth over those years spent cheating. What she did do was limit her culpability to a short period of time as to not be outed as a complete farce or a total cheat -- if such a distinction can be made for one who cheats for a short period of time and one who had cheated since their first season on the track as a professional athlete.

Marion Jones will fall into that second category.

The evening she confessed, she wore a pinstriped suit before an audience which stretched around the world, put on an act of sorrow and guilt with the trifecta of emotions secured by her red eyes dripping tears down either side of her face.

Some in the public bought it. Most other people forgot it about a week later.

I, for one, however, never will.

I'm not shy in stating that I'd known Marion Jones was a cheat a long time ago, and there are no shortage of quotes on the internet for you to read at your leisure (including an earlier blog from me here from 2006-December-12).

Marion Jones needed not confess to tell me that -- logic and reasoning did an excellent job in not failing me when called upon to put understanding to how she climbed suddenly up a ladder in which she had never before been in the same postal code and pulled off a world championship victory in her first season as a professional (liar) back in 1997.

I wanted to strike certain buttons on my computer during her self-awareness speech two weeks ago, hit "enter" and just get it over with for her -- to simply confess for her right then and there as she followed her prepared revelation of some things past, and most things still hidden.

I couldn't, however, because Marion Jones's legacy, as well as that of her destiny -- as far as this sport is concerned -- is married to half truths, half lies and every denial in between; one peep from me about the real "truth" behind her confession and how deep her sins against the sport were rooted would have ended in Marion Jones contradicting herself and having her commit yet one more act of perjury before the authorities with whom she had earlier that hour discussed the details of her indiscretion with as little revelation as possible in order to receive the lightest punishment available.

Marion Jones, the heretofore "golden girl" of the sport, had revealed that she had misstated the truth, and attempted to forge ahead with as little of her blood spilled as possible on the issue. She exited the stage and was to not look back -- leaving nearly as nonchalantly as she entered the scene following a tumultuous 2006 season which pegged her as a drugs cheat, yet exonerated her at a later date for reasons too far and too touchy to discuss on one blog entry.

The only difference between the before and after of that night was that Marion Jones's mother, of whose first name she bears, had fallen down on the steps to justice, but was standing behind her daughter, patting her on the back, after justice was to be revealed to an audience of a few hoping to transmit the message to the four corners of the world.

Marion Jones lied another time to you and to me in leaving us with four minutes and 25 seconds of air time which revealed little about the truth, accomplished much less in terms of educating the public, and left her standing with medals and honours collected illegally from another period of time, namely the 1997 IAAF World Championships.

There are mixed messages we in the media and blog world are sending out to you concerning what to do with the information provided by Marion Jones that she conned people and had subsequently turned into a con, herself.

Some writers would have you take up her cross for her, forgive her and move on in an act of kindness which they say refreshes the soul and causes us to not harbour bitter feelings.

I'm not as apt to simply forgive and forget, because Marion Jones is destined to come back into the spotlight at a future junction -- she intimated that she would like to write a book.

Expectations from most are that the book will tell common John more than he knows now, but it will never fully tell the truth of the matter of Marion Lois Jones vs. Reality.

My reality is that I don't have to spend much time defending my propositions which suggested that Marion Jones was a cheat. She did that for me and everyone else who had either supported some of those notions, had their own, or those who had no idea that she should ever have been a suspect in the matter.

Talk today is based on how long she was a cheat, not if she was one.

My other sense of things real and not perceived, however, is that no matter what others may believe they know about Marion Jones with regard to the information she deliberately and carefully doctored as truth to the world, nothing outside of Marion Jones's own will can cover the gaping hole she left out as fact when stating she was merely a victim to a couple of other people's transgressions.

To have lied during a moment of truth reveals to me that Marion Jones, no matter how much one prods and pokes, threatens and takes away, will never, ever, ever give up the fight to keep the imposing amount of information she has left within herself -- even if that, too, could turn her long-term fortunes around.

That's why one believes that Marion Jones is better off away from the sport so that most folks go on about their lives in the moment of the scandal, but not affected by the greater lie left untold. If Marion Jones returns, the engine revvs up again, a similar song gets sung by -- and about -- her and a few people get on getting interested in the great Marion Jones -- a woman who once won five medals in a single Olympics, but who had to give them back...because she was a cheat.

Please, Marion, for God's sake -- since you've stated you've put your trust in Him to take you on through past this state of events -- stay out of the sport for your good and mine. You'd do us both a huge service, we could both go on with the rest of our lives not worried about what you say, how you cover it up and the sport could simply take this punch from you as a knock-down, but not a knock-out with respect to how average people view its cleanliness.

Then again, I'm not one for wishful thinking.

WADA Under International Fire

Story written by EPelle

WADA, suffering an apparent international rebellion by international sports officials over the current anti-drug enforcement system - one which is regarded by critics as harsh and inflexible, has been called upon to havemajor rules revisions, according to documents released Monday.

The Los Angeles Times reported today that among the international sports officials' main concerns is WADA's stance on trace amounts of banned substances which provide the same consequence as intentional drug use - cases which, the LA Times states, often impose identical penalties in either case (source).

The current system, the LA Times quotes, is "far too oversimplified" and can lead to "absurd" results according to the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations. WADA is being pressed to give anti-doping enforcement authorities around the world more flexibility and autonomy to reduce sanctions — or impose none at all — as they see fit on specific athlete cases where drug violations are found to be accidental or trivial.

The comments from agencies ranging from the International Olympic Committee and other agencies - including world-wide athletics national governing bodies - were solicited by WADA and collected over a six-month period as part of a checks-and-balances review process for the World Anti-doping Code, which was first implemented four years ago.

WADA officials have portrayed a united front in both its goals for drug-free competition and its enforcement methods, and it is not known how much influence the criticisms and proposed changes made by the officials would have on revised Anti-doping Code language when it is submitted for approval by the 36-member WADA board at WADA's annual meeting, World Conference on Doping in Sport, 15-17 November in Madrid.

Among the most harsher points brought up in the documents, sports officials have criticized WADA for two main issues: punishing athletes on the basis of unreliable lab tests and WADA's principle of "strict liability," whereby athletes are sanctioned for drugs violations when banned substances in an athlete's blood or urine sample are found at trace-amount levels.

"It does not seem fair that athletes who 'innocently' transgress the rules, strict liability notwithstanding, receive the same penalty as those who have purposely set out to cheat," stated David Gerrard, New Zealand's anti-doping agency chairman.

One area which has been of great concern to athletics is the three Carl Lewis "positive" tests from the USA Olympic Trials in 1988.

Pound, though not having been mentioned by name, was understood as having been criticized in the international documents for appearing prejudgiced of accused athletes who were awaiting pending appeals processes for their cases.

American Marion Jones was not mentioned, however, nor was her EPO test which Pound stated he would have re-analysed to the extent that he nearly crossed a line in calling the UCLA laboratory negligent for not calling the "B"-sample reading positive. Pound has been critical of Jones since her alleged involvement with BALCO - making it a mission to bring her to some sort of justice in the fight against dopers.

The LA Times wrote today that the WADA code has set strict-liability relief standards which are virtually impossible to meet according to sports officials.

One problematic area which is certain to come under fire is the degree which countries should be allowed to call a trace-amount positive and malfeasance, and when one has inadvertantly tested positive.

Pound considers the 1988 Carl Lewis three positive tests anti-doping violations, and has stated that Lewis' participation in Seoul was illegal.

United States officials took action into its own hands in 1988 when Lewis stated to them he had taken cold medication which later was found to contain a banned substance, causing him to test positive on three separate occasions before he competed in the Summer Olympics.

Lewis, who did not inform anti-doping officers of the substances found in his medication - violating a rule already set in place, was found to have born little or no fault/no negligence when trace amounts of banned substances where found in his system on three separate occasions - substances, he claimed, were from taking cold medications.

Pound has made no secret that he believes the USA is involved in cover-ups, especially when it comes to Lewis having tested positive for low levels of drugs found in the Sudafed he stated he had taken, and subsequently being permitted to participate in the 1988 Olympics, nonethless.

Pound, engaging the United States directly – one of his biggest targets in the fight against doping due to what can be perceived as cover-ups, sounded off in a New York Times article, stating:

“There aren’t too many people who are prepared to point the finger at America and say: ‘Hey, take off the [expletive] halo. You’re just like everybody else.’ That’s a problem in America. America has a singular ability to delude itself.” (blog link).

WADA has a load of issues to consider as it attempts to shore up its anti-doping efforts around the globe in an attempt to unify organisations' strategies and stances to combat doping - inadvertant or not.

Should they be oberseved as seriously taking into consideration measures and efforts to unify the world agencies' request without diluting the purpose for which WADA has been created, sports officials and atheltes may put more faith into the processes and procedures WADA has on the table, and will perhaps buy into a system which may seem fairer and more just than the current model.