So what happens to an athlete who, with a potentially long future ahead in sport, tests positive at the Games?
The answer according to World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Director General David HOWMAN (NZL) is difficult, especially after two wrestlers were caught and disqualified at the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games.
Although emphasising that such an athlete will “bring extreme shame on himself or herself, the family and the country,” and that “if somebody is stupid enough to bring to an event like this those kinds of substances, he or she deserves that sort of criticism,” HOWMAN, who is at the Innsbruck 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Games for the launch of its Culture and Education Programme and WADA’s booth, elaborated further.
“What really worries me is an athlete told to do something which they are not sure about. If a coach says, ‘Take this because it is the best thing for you', and the young athlete is not able to argue with the coach, and then tests positive, what are we doing about the coach? What do we do about the agent who slips a couple of pills into an athlete’s drink because that agent wants to get more famous?”
“That is the area we have not nailed yet. We can ban athletes, but what do we do about the people around him? That is a big issue.”
WADA was formed in 1999 after a string of doping scandals at the Tour de France.
Despite the support of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and virtually all national and sporting federations, the agency has in recent years endured a trying relationship with some partners.
The IOC’s ‘Rule 45’, which bars from the next Olympic Games athletes banned for more than six months, was nullified in October after WADA took the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Another organisation in court is the British Olympic Association. It disallows its shamed sportsmen from selection to Great Britain’s Olympic team for life, which is considered by WADA to be non-compliant of the anti-doping code.
“What everybody agreed right from the start was one set of rules that covers everybody. But then you get people who say, ‘Hang on, we want to be stronger than that’,” HOWMAN said.
“You can’t do that. You can’t have somebody in Britain treated differently from somebody in Singapore. It makes no sense.”
HOWMAN added that instead of heading to the CAS, stakeholders should table their suggestions for a review of the code and debate them with the international community.
However, human rights issues aside, the former sports lawyer wants to remind everyone that already in the current code, a second offence can trigger a lifetime ban. “But people forget that,” he said.
Communicating to the public is in fact a cause he feels strongly about.
A lack of accurate information, HOWMAN insists, breeds ignorance.
Cycling’s many reported cases of steroid use, for example, are in large part due to the sport’s extremely strict drug-testing system.
“If you don’t talk about it, people won’t know,” he said, referring to certain sports that test for doping in a less-than-efficient manner and then claim that they are “clean”.
As recently as 2010, the 254,000 samples submitted to WADA only revealed 36 cases of EPO abuse.
Regarding these plots to “beat the system,” HOWMAN said, “I was both disappointed and a little bit angry because what we’re trying to do is support the 'clean' athlete and show that everything is being done to make sure the 'unclean' athletes are not competing against you.”
He assured that steps have been taken and that WADA will continue to improve its methods.
The Montreal-based agency now has links with law enforcement groups worldwide in broadening its surveillance, at the same time hiring investigator Jack ROBERTSON, formerly of the United States’ Drug Enforcement Administration.
HOWMAN is hopeful, starting at the Youth Olympic Games.
“These Games are an opportunity for young athletes to be fully educated so they won’t succumb to later temptations.”
IOC Young Reporter Tan Thiam Peng
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