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GOHEAVY.COM Olympic Weightlifting Forum

IWF (and other) anti-doping - AUS story

Posted By: Michael Noonan (c211-28-40-85.sunsh1.vic.optusnet.com.au)
Date: Friday, December 8, 2006, @ 5:46 p.m.

You may find of interest the following story, from the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, Australia, on 09 December 2006.

STORY:
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Like money for old dope: how the IWF cleans up on drug cheats

December 9, 2006

The world weightlifting body's user-pays policy for drug cheats lowers the bar too far, writes Jacquelin Magnay.

AUSTRALIAN weightlifting is under the microscope by the country's drug agency, keen to flex its new investigative powers. But who is looking at the international body, the International Weightlifting Federation, which uses its continual supply of doped athletes as a prized money-making venture?

This year the IWF has demanded "doping payments" from five national federations that had more than three drug positives in a year, which add up to a smart $US1 million ($1.27 million).

Australia, which had four positive drug tests last year - all to the stimulant benzylpiperazine, which in part prompted the nine-month Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority investigation, has not had to pay such a fine.

Stimulants, apparently, aren't on the international federation's radar screen. If they were, and if the tests were done by IWF testers, rather than those at ASADA, Australian officials and coaches would also be banned - pending a hefty cash contribution, of course.

This week, Iran's 10-time world champion and dual Olympic over-105kg weightlifting gold medallist Hossein Rezazadeh, known more formidably as Hercules, was allowed to compete at the Asian Games in Doha this week because his national federation coughed up a substantial whack of its fine - or was it a bribe? - of $US400,000 to the IWF. Nine Iranians, not including Hercules, had been caught taking steroids in the lead-up to the recent world championships. If Hercules was to compete in Doha the national federation had to show the colour of its money. The first to congratulate Hercules on his Doha win on Thursday was Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

At a recent meeting of the IWF executive, of which Australia's Sam Coffa is first vice-president, the Indian Weightlifting Federation was told its blanket ban on all of its lifters would be lifted as soon as a doping fine of $US50,000 was paid.

And the rivers of honour-money keep on flowing.

Argentina was ordered to pay $US50,000 because three of its lifters violated the anti-doping code this year. And the value of a cheating Russian and Kazakhstani lifter is, apparently, much more. Both the Russian and Kazakhstani federations were sanctioned to pay $US250,000 for having "more than three" doped lifters in 2006.

The fines are supposed to be paid into the IWF's "International Doping Fund" to educate lifters and stem the rampant abuse of drugs in the sport. It has been in existence for some time - certainly at the time of the Sydney Olympics in 2000, when Romania was able to pay its way out of a ban. But the World Anti-Doping Agency and the International Olympic Committee have long held private concerns about the ineffective education of drugs within the sport and the allocation of this money.

While lifters who have been caught have been sanctioned for two years, or for some with a second offence, for life, the perception that a national federation can buy its way out of trouble is damaging in the extreme. It sends a confusing message about international doping of differing standards, that has only been exacerbated by the Pakistan Cricket Board overturning the bans on pace bowlers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif.

Here we have, again, a national body unwilling to be tough on its own. Australia is not above this - Shane Warne's one-year ban was only half the mandatory sanction. The difference is that Warne's paltry excuse wasn't believed and he was penalised; in Pakistan, the shrug of ignorance of both cricketers was accepted.

However, it is unlikely that Akhtar and Asif will play again in the short term as the International Cricket Council is under significant international pressure to appeal against the PCB's drug tribunal decision in the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

If not, the World Anti-Doping Agency will, and throughout its history, CAS has shown a remarkable adherence to the strict provisions of the WADA code: that is, if it is in an athlete's urine, the athlete is guilty.

In Pakistan, the reinstatement of the cricketers wasn't universally accepted. The legendary batsman Javed Miandad said the board "has only gone and embarrassed Pakistan cricket internationally", and the episode was an "eyewash". Which brings us back to the ASADA investigation into drugs and weightlifting, which has the potential to be labelled an embarrassment and an eyewash too. This investigation, headed by the US Balco prosecutor Rich Young, has finally been handed to the ASADA chairman Richard Ings after an exhaustive process. Ings now has the sole power to decide whether to publish the report in full, or at all, possibly as early as next week.

It would be refreshing if a drugs matter were dealt with as transparently as possible. Australian taxpayers inject more than $350,000 a year into weightlifting, and taxpayers have underpinned the multimillion-dollar investigation. There are issues of credibility and accountability to the Australian public.

And what was that about honour?