#360view: WADA's credibility gone down the drain

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  • Given a lifeline? Maria Sharapova.

    The World Anti-Doping Agency’s statement of guidelines to stakeholders released on Wednesday regarding the prohibited substance meldonium – a drug which was detected in samples from 172 athletes this year so far, including Maria Sharapova – is nothing short of astonishing.

    In a bizarre move, WADA admitted to having “limited data” on the urinary excretion of meldonium – which in laymen’s terms means they don’t exactly know how long it takes to flush out of one’s system.

    They also stated that their main reason to ban the drug was the high prevalence of its use by athletes when they monitored the drug last year along with “claims of performance enhancement had been made by various authors, including the manufacturer of meldonium.”

    That doesn’t sound like actual research was done into the exact performance-enhancing elements of the drug.

    It sounds more like “we found that many athletes took it, and next year is an Olympic year, so let’s just ban it without doing the research”.

    The statement also said that several studies are currently being conducted and that “in the case of meldonium, there is currently a lack of clear scientific information on excretion times.”

    If WADA don’t know how long it takes this drug to get out of one’s system, then how exactly are athletes supposed to know when they should have stopped taking it prior to January 1, 2016, which is when the drug was officially added to the prohibited list?

    Also how can WADA go ahead and ban a drug before conducting all these “studies”?

    After listing a series of scenarios involving the number of micrograms per milliliter of meldonium detected in an athlete’s sample, the WADA statement concludes that “there may be grounds for no fault or negligence on the part of the athlete”.

    Is this their way of giving an out to Sharapova and preparing the world for her return? Or do they know that the levels of the drug they found in her system are well above these exceptions and are confident this won’t affect her case?

    The problem with the statement they made is that irrespective of Sharapova’s admission of negligence, and how much meldonium was found in her system, WADA have basically admitted to jumping the gun and banning a drug without completing their research and they laughably said that they can go as far as lifting an athlete’s suspension but holding the right to changing their mind in the future when their studies are complete.

    We already have so little trust in anyone and anything at the moment and these revelations will only drive the public as well as the athletes to lose faith in WADA, whose reputation will no doubt be tarnished after this.

    The loopholes they presented in their own process will throw many cases wide open and considering they have 172 positive tests so far this year, sorting through each and every one and finding out the degree of fault, intent and negligence based on shady research and vague guidelines will be a fool’s errand for the tribunals that are responsible for handing out suspensions.

    It’s unclear exactly how this statement will affect Sharapova’s case but it undoubtedly gives her lawyers plenty to contest. If you come up with a law and admit to it being flawed then it becomes very difficult for you to legally ban people for breaking that flawed law.

    Sorry, WADA, but you dropped the ball on this one and the statement from Sharapova’s lawyer is only just the start of some inescapable consequences.

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