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Should there be a life time ban?
Stephen E Forde
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I just read that a member of the British bobsleigh team has been tested positive for a banned substance.
There is are calls for the life time ban on certain atheletes to be lifted to allow the British Olympic team to have the best possible athelete on board.
The British Olympic Association. is expected to loose legal fight to keep its lifetime ban on those suspended for taking illegal substances.
If the atheletes had not been caught they would probably have just carried on for the length of their career and noone would have been the wiser.
The athelete was caught and suspended the chances of them risking doing it again are small. Taking away the lifetime Olympic ban is not likely to mean they risk doping and getting another suspension that may mean they miss or are disqualified from competing anyway.
There is such a divergence of opinion over the issue and there seems to be no way of knowing really why people think what they think. I think at the heart of it are peoples attiude not to sport or fairness, or whether they were ever the best in their sport, but rather their attiude to people making errors of judgement. May I go as far as to say that some atheletes see sport very much as a means of becoming and some as a job that if you mess up your out. I would say the former try harder to understand the reasons the latter dont and see only the actions, and see cheats only as people who tried to take some thing they didnt deserve.
Opinons, thoughts jokes please
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Comments
even reformed drug takers, while i admire their contrition, are arguably still benefitting from their drug abuse with enhanced muscle definition, strength and stamina.
especially those who took substances over a prolonged period of time like dwain chambers.
they are still receiving an unfair advantage. life ban.
Are you entirely sure of the science of the last statement?
It is an untested possibility as this article from Slate speaks of;
http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/explainer/2012/03/justin_gatlin_is_sprinting_to_gold_again_is_it_possible_he_s_still_benefitting_from_doping_.html
There are different levels of cheating with, on one end of the scale, an athlete who has systematically cheated all through his or her career to date and who would have continued doing so had they not been caught and, on the other end, a young athlete, who, under pressure from a coach, takes something naughty to get them through a certain race and who strongly regrets what they've done. You also, even lower down the scale, get people who inadvertently take a banned substance contained in a drug taken for medical reasons.
I don't think it's right that all should be treated the same.
I also don't think we should be going around lifting bans just to make sure we have a decent Olympic team!
However, I disagree with your point about a one-off instance. When you decide to take an illegal performance enhancing drug, once or systematically, you cross a line and have deliberately chosen to seek to gain an unfair advantage. Resisting pressure from a coach just comes down to moral character.
I wouldn't condone either but I think it's worth making a distinction and taking that into account when punishing athletes who have taken drugs.
For me the issue isn't "as bad as" it's about deliberately choosing to cheat. For that I do think a lifetime ban is appropriate. Sport is all about competing against others according to an agreed set of arbitrary rules. When you deliberately choose not to follow those rules, then that is unfair. Doing so with drugs is worse because you are secretly trying to gain an unfair advantage, and yes I think even a one off deserves a lifetime ban.
but everyone tested positive would just claim..it was a one off guv honest
Personally I think it's shameful that a country that choses to exclude drug cheats as a matter of principal are going to be forced to reinstate them by the very body who are tasked with policing drug cheating. It's like finding out that the local garage deliberately sold you a stolen car and then being forced to buy from them again!
Having said that, it's a very difficult subject to be objective and consistant about. There's a big difference for example between Dwayne Chambers who was part of an organised and quite deliberate attempt to defraud the sport, and someone like the skier Alan Baxter who bought a Vicks Sinex in the USA without realising that it contained a banned substances that wasn't in the UK version. Should both receive a life ban or should they get different punishments? And if they're different then what are the exact criteria for different punishments? Was it right for a Kenyan athlete to be found guilty of doping because she received banned drugs in hospital as doctors struggled to keep her and her unborn baby alive? There's a huge grey area and attempting a one size fits all solution will never work. In the eyes of most people taking them deliberately is a very different thing to doing it accidentally, but in most cases the only proof that exists is that the drugs were found, and unless the athlete then admits that they took them knowingly there is no way of proving where they came from and whether it was deliberate or not.
I really don't know what the answer is other then every case being dealt with on its merits by a single body, rather than every individual nation being able to impose their own rules which allows politics to infuence decisions. I still think beyond that though that countries should be free to chose who represents them and should have the right not to select people who have been shown to cheat.
I remember the Vicks inhaler incident - I think that was a Scottish skier, Alan something maybe? I also remember chuckling rather a lot when that Canadian snowboarder got into trouble for testing positive for cannabis. Yes, okay, so it was still an illegal substance, but I couldn't believe people were actually discussing it as if it was ojust another performance enhancing drug. More like performance detracting I'd have thought.
And yes, I think a lifetime ban is in order. But what do you do with the numerous athletes who slip and slide around and avoid being tested as much as possible so that while they never actually fail a test it seems fairly obvious that they must have something to hide. Wasn't Linford Christie extremely notorious for that?
exiled: Of course it's fine for us to have differing views. I can entirely understand your argument. I just feel that some people make stupid mistakes and that punishments should be decided on a case by case basis, rather than a blanket life ban for all.
seren: That is a difficult one I agree. You'd have to have additional investigations rather than only relying on the evidence provided by the test. Obviously, none of this is black and white but, when accusing somebody in any walk of life, you have to have evidence. If you have blanket bans, you don't need so much evidence as the personal circumstances are by the by but, a lifetime ban is a big thing and I don't think it should be handed out lightly.
I do think that someone who takes something as a one off under pressure from a coach should be severely reprimanded and given a ban. I'm just not sure that a lifetime ban is the right thing in those circumstances.
"But what do you do with the numerous athletes who slip and slide around and avoid being tested as much as possible so that while they never actually fail a test it seems fairly obvious that they must have something to hide."
I'm not sure what the rule is in Athletics currently but I remember the football case that involved Rio Ferdinand a few years back. The rule there was that a missed test is a failed test. It's harsh but I can see the logic.In the case of football however, lifetime bans are rarely given out for using drugs so the consequences aren't as bad.
Perhaps a system whereby an athlete who misses a test at a given time has a certain time period to make their own way, under their own expense, to an agreed location for testing? I'm not sure if this feasible in terms of the time taken for a drug to exit the system but I think you do have to allow for genuine human error rather than assuming a missed test = cheating.
I support a lifetime ban in certain circumstances, if you take the Chambers example where he intentionally took performance enhancing drugs:
He has tainted every race he competed in before being caught.
Although the science may be sketchy, he may still be benefitting from the performance raining enhamcement linked to his drug taking.
Even with the negative PR he attracts, there is no doubt that his ability to get funding now is boosted by the profile he gained from performances during his drug taking period.
Given the above, I think he's getting off lightly being allowed to compete at all, being banned from the sports marquee event isn't excessive in my view.
At elite levels the athletes are required to be available for testing any time, anywhere. They have to be contactable and make themselves available when called.
Christine Oruguohu failed to be available three times in a row, and got a lifetime ban from the BOA. This was overturned when she wanted to compete in Beijing, she blackmailed the appeal panel basically by saying she would leave Britain and compete for someone else!
I think it should have stood, and it should be the case for all athletes.
LIfe Time Ban for all who use perfomance enhancing drugs it is bad for sport and also for our youngsters
if we say athletes can take drugs and get away with it how do we teach our children not to take any kind of drugs
also I am proud of our atheletes take a look at Daley Thompson great athete never cheated
Ban should be on Dwayne Chambers for Life
and all sports people Footballers ,boxers etc should be treated the same
I work had to run my races and dont take drugs just beatroot juice
Ban the lot
Why ban anyone? what's the point with bans? costly testing regimes that could simply be stopped, putting the money into grass roots sport instead of the pharmaceutical businesses.
Not much point when there are two major champions Marion Jones who won everything and only forfeited her own medals when she later admitted cheating, and Florence Griffith-Joiner who still holds the world record from 1988.
Proving that despite all the testing they just can't catch cheats!! whoever wins medals this year we will not know if they've cheated, Marion Jones in particular proved you can pass any test
"The athelete was caught and suspended the chances of them risking doing it again are small."
Sounds good - any evidence that it's true though?
I'm all for the lifetime ban. Chambers knew the rules. I was originally against Christine O getting reinstated but then I heard a discussion on with (from memory) Colin Jackson, Steve Cramm and Denise Lewis, all of whom are vehemently anti drug cheats. Apparently at the time the ways to contact the relevant peeps if you had to move training venue were limited. I'm not 100% convinced but the fact that several respected anti-drug athletes make this case I suspect it has some merit.
Another point is that the system has inequalities as it stands, meaning American athletes with positiive tests don't get a lifetime ban whereas British athletes do. I can see the drive for equality, but I'd rather have everyone come to the British position rather than the other way round. I just don't see two years (when you're not currently tested IIRC) as enough of a deterrent.
It is hard for the testing agencies, as there will always be time when a new drug is about that there isn't a test for yet. The best solution I've heard to this is the freezing samples idea that Paula Radcliffe has exposited - so samples can be re-tested as new tests become available.
An automatic life time ban if a prohibited substance is found in your system is I think inherently unfair.
I can imagine that a substance could get into your system without your knowledge and in a way you could not reasonably be expected to know about or suspect.
The automatic ban is really a sledge hammer to crack a nut. Just because judging each case on its merits would be hard difficult and drawn out does not mean you can just choose another quicker, easier option, that leads to injustice.
I think there is a temptation to view fairness in sport as an almost sacred persuit. In my mind its simply practical. Cheating makes for bad sport. If you can find away for a former cheat to come back into the fold and really show what they are made of that is a real truimph.