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Fairness and efficiency of the anti-doping system
36 Plays1 year ago
Drink only bottled water, eat organic chicken & organic eggs and make sure that the person you kiss or spend night with does not take drugs. Sounds like weird advice to ordinary people, yet it can be crucial for the athletes not to be banned from performing and ruin their career because of the threshold found in their blood while testing for doping.
Nowadays laboratories can detect not only nanograms of prohibited substances but picograms, which are one trillionth of a gram… like one splash of salt in an entire swimming pool. No scientists can distinguish it and according to the rules the burden of proof lies on the athletes who need to make an investigation and sometimes spend thousands to justify they are innocent.
We spoke with Paul J. Greene, the Founder of Global Sports Advocates and one of the world’s leading sports lawyers on this topic, about the fairness and efficiency of the anti-doping system.
He sees inspiration in the way UFC and several American leagues are dealing with this issue by switching the burden of proof to the anti-doping agency in cases where the level of the prohibited substance is too little. Now it’s for them to make an effort and prove that it was an intention: a complete game changer.
And it’s not the only way to deal with it. To find out more, we invite you to listen to this conversation.
Check out our website score-sport.com and our LinkedIn page, to find more information about what we do. Please rate, comment and share, if you feel like it.
This episode was recorded in November 2022.
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Transcript
Introduction to SCORE Podcast
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome to SCORE Podcast.
00:00:12
Speaker
In this podcast, we discuss the responsibility of sport for and within society.
00:00:17
Speaker
What impact should sport have on our world?
00:00:20
Speaker
Can sport do more?
00:00:21
Speaker
Who is responsible?
00:00:22
Speaker
To address these questions, we focus on possible solutions and desired scenarios.
00:00:27
Speaker
We break our discussion down in four parts.
00:00:30
Speaker
First, we describe the current situation.
00:00:32
Speaker
Second, we draw the idea of future scenario.
00:00:34
Speaker
Third, we walk backwards, defining the key milestones.
00:00:38
Speaker
And then, we call for actions needed today.
00:00:41
Speaker
And we are your hosts today, Donata Taddea and Alexandra or Sasha Volkova.
Building a Fairer Anti-Doping System
00:00:57
Speaker
Today we got together to discuss how to build a fairer and anti-doping system that protects athletes.
00:01:03
Speaker
And in particular, we want to better understand so-called story with thresholds.
00:01:07
Speaker
And for this, we invited one of the world's leading sports lawyers, Paul Green.
00:01:11
Speaker
Welcome, Paul.
00:01:13
Speaker
Thank you for having me.
00:01:14
Speaker
It's really, really an honor to be on today.
00:01:17
Speaker
Paul is a founder of Global Sports Advocates and he has represented athletes from more than 50 countries and more than 50 different sports, multiple sports federations and national Olympic committees in various matters.
00:01:31
Speaker
Paul is not just a renowned international lawyer, he is also a well-known speaker and author.
00:01:37
Speaker
He teaches sports law both nationally and internationally.
00:01:41
Speaker
In addition to this, Paul is an editorial board member of leading sports law publications, Law in Sports and Football Legal, and a long-time member of the Sports Lawyers Association.
00:01:52
Speaker
Again, thank you very much, Paul, for being with us today.
00:01:55
Speaker
We are honored to have you in our SCO podcast.
00:01:58
Speaker
And with this being said, I suggest we start straight away.
Technology and Unintentional Doping
00:02:08
Speaker
Paul, we believe that it's important to start with understanding where we stand today.
00:02:13
Speaker
Preparing for this episode and going through various cases you have managed, we realized that in the past 10 or so years, the technology advanced to the level of detecting tens and hundreds of nanograms per milliliter of various substances and their metabolites in the blood samples.
00:02:28
Speaker
However, what we figured that it's still not clear, or it's at least not documented and officially confirmed by the World Anti-Toping Agency, what is the minimum amount of substance, what minimum amount of substance does not have an influence on athletic performance.
00:02:45
Speaker
And at the same time, athletes are still held responsible for containing those minimum quantities of substances in their bodies when they do not intentionally consume them and very often are oblivious to the fact that this substance is appearing in their bodies through food or tap water or somehow.
00:03:03
Speaker
Can you please guide us through this a little?
00:03:06
Speaker
Why so many athletes become subject to disqualification after consuming like meat or water or even just kissing another person who consumed prohibited substance?
Challenges of Current Anti-Doping Rules
00:03:16
Speaker
Well, it's a very good topic.
00:03:18
Speaker
It's really timely to discuss because I think it's really at the forefront of anti-doping philosophy today in terms of where we need to go in the next few years.
00:03:29
Speaker
10 years ago, you're right, Sasha, the levels that labs could detect are nowhere close to what they can detect today.
00:03:36
Speaker
10 years ago, a lab that detected, let's say, under 100 nanograms would be low.
00:03:41
Speaker
Where today we're talking about detection of picograms, which is one trillionth of a gram.
00:03:47
Speaker
I've heard that described as one splash of salt in an entire swimming pool.
00:03:52
Speaker
At that level, it cannot help an athlete to have that substance in their body.
00:03:57
Speaker
It just doesn't.
00:03:58
Speaker
There's no performance enhancing effect at those low levels.
00:04:01
Speaker
But the issue becomes, how did it get in your body?
00:04:05
Speaker
There's no way to distinguish scientifically right now if it was a low level contamination case like you're saying, or if it was what they would call the tail end of a washout period, meaning an athlete did take it intentionally.
00:04:18
Speaker
And then this is the very, very, very, very end when they're catching them right at the end, maybe after 10 weeks of taking it or something like that.
00:04:26
Speaker
So Wada would say, well, we really can't distinguish and we need to police and let's err on the side of banning everyone, where athletes and other federations have pushed back and said, no, that is not fair.
00:04:38
Speaker
When the standard of strict liability, it's so high on athletes, you can't ban every single person without regard for how it got in their body.
00:04:46
Speaker
So there's been a big movement now over the last five years to try to come up with what are called thresholds or minimum reporting limits, depending on the substance.
00:04:54
Speaker
We're now below that amount.
00:04:57
Speaker
It won't be an automatic and a doping rule violation.
00:05:00
Speaker
It could be considered an atypical, meaning they'll do an investigation, or it could be considered if it's below that level, they won't pursue it because it's so low that it doesn't matter.
Developing Thresholds to Prevent Unfair Bans
00:05:11
Speaker
And it really is substance specific.
00:05:14
Speaker
A lot of these substances are very difficult to understand what they are.
00:05:17
Speaker
They have long scientific names and they're intimidating to everyone, including certainly the athletes that encounter them for the first time, most of the time without knowing what they actually even are.
00:05:29
Speaker
Yeah, we discussed it before the podcast, how we cannot pronounce even some substance's names, it would be really hard.
00:05:36
Speaker
So, but what we want to ask, you mentioned that when they are atypical analytical findings, there is still investigation to be held.
00:05:46
Speaker
So what does it mean?
00:05:47
Speaker
So even if it's a minimum reported limit, but the investigation still has to be conducted to identify if the athlete intentionally has taken it or it appeared in his body.
00:05:57
Speaker
Do I understand it correctly?
00:05:59
Speaker
So the way the system works right now is if it's below the threshold or below the reporting limit,
00:06:07
Speaker
and there's an investigation, then the athlete still has the burden actually to prove under the WADA system where it came from.
00:06:15
Speaker
So let's say the athlete tests positive for a really, really low amount of a substance that's known to be a mean hormone.
00:06:22
Speaker
I'll use one, probably nobody else ever has heard of it, but it's called xerenol.
00:06:27
Speaker
Xerenol is a drug that's used in meat in the United States and Canada.
00:06:31
Speaker
It's actually banned in Europe.
00:06:34
Speaker
But xeranol comes up in low levels and it's not a drug that people would use for doping.
00:06:39
Speaker
It's not a drug that anyone would use, but yet it somehow shows up sometimes.
00:06:43
Speaker
And so the athlete would then have to prove that they ate meat within 24 or 48 hours.
00:06:49
Speaker
Do they have receipts?
00:06:50
Speaker
Can they prove they were at a restaurant?
00:06:53
Speaker
Can they prove the meat was not organic meat?
00:06:55
Speaker
Because organic meat doesn't have hormones.
00:06:57
Speaker
That sort of thing.
00:06:59
Speaker
But the burden would still be on the athlete and they would still have to discharge their burden to show that, yes, they ate meat that could have led to this finding.
00:07:07
Speaker
And then the case would likely be closed out.
00:07:09
Speaker
However, there are still cases with Xerenol where athletes are being banned for two and four years.
00:07:14
Speaker
So it's not like it's a guarantee.
00:07:16
Speaker
If you test positive at that low level, the case will go away.
00:07:19
Speaker
It doesn't always go away.
00:07:21
Speaker
Contrast that now with the UFC system.
00:07:24
Speaker
UFC is more what you were talking about, meaning that it switches.
00:07:27
Speaker
And this is where and I know we'll get to the future later.
00:07:29
Speaker
This is where I think the future lies at the present, which is the UFC isn't beholden to the water rules.
00:07:35
Speaker
And they and the USADA, USA Night Doping Agency, have come up with a more flexible system.
00:07:41
Speaker
Under the UFC system, the same levels exist.
00:07:45
Speaker
However, if the athlete's under the level, the burden shifts to USADA to prove it was taken intentionally.
00:07:51
Speaker
And for non-lawyers, the burden shift is critical because whoever has the burden has to overcome it legally.
00:07:58
Speaker
And that's very, very difficult.
00:08:00
Speaker
So if the burden shifts to prove the athlete took it intentionally, it's going to be much more difficult to prove the athlete committed the anti-doping rule violation and the athlete would get the benefit of the doubt there.
Impact of Contamination Cases
00:08:12
Speaker
It's very interesting.
00:08:12
Speaker
I just want to understand how many athletes are we talking about?
00:08:16
Speaker
And another question together with this, what are the ways of...
00:08:22
Speaker
How do these substances appear in your body?
00:08:24
Speaker
So you mentioned meat and you've dealed with such cases recently.
00:08:29
Speaker
I've seen a case where the athlete, she just drank the tap water and then there was something in the tap water.
00:08:35
Speaker
What are the other situations and how many athletes are we talking about?
00:08:40
Speaker
Is it a rare situation or could it affect anybody?
00:08:43
Speaker
Well, I think we're talking worldwide hundreds of cases a year.
00:08:49
Speaker
Certainly with meat contamination, there's lots of meat contamination around the world.
00:08:54
Speaker
There are very well-known hotspots of it, Mexico, China, Guatemala, Colombia, countries where there's hundreds of meat contamination cases out of Mexico.
00:09:04
Speaker
I mean, it's just astonishing.
00:09:06
Speaker
So there's a lot less with water, but there's many studies with water contamination.
00:09:11
Speaker
And you did mention the one case that I had, Kristen Shaldobin, who was a gymnast.
00:09:15
Speaker
She tested positive for a substance called hydrochlorothiazide, which is a heart medicine, not something that normally a young athlete would take.
00:09:24
Speaker
We did a lot of research that night on where she drank her water from, et cetera, came out, realized Lake Michigan, which is where the city of Chicago is where she lived.
00:09:34
Speaker
had incredibly high levels of hydrochlorothiazide as was measured by the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States.
00:09:41
Speaker
They testified before the U.S. Congress about this.
00:09:44
Speaker
And we were able to produce reports that showed there was incredibly high levels of this particular substance in the water that she drank.
00:09:52
Speaker
Now, why would there be such high levels of pharmaceuticals in the water system?
00:09:57
Speaker
Because old people take hydrochlorothiazide and flush it down the toilet.
00:10:02
Speaker
And once they flush the drugs down the toilet, the filtration systems don't take it out and the water stays in there.
00:10:08
Speaker
Prescription drugs is a big, big problem for contamination in that setting and also in the setting of in pharmacies.
00:10:15
Speaker
Pharmacists regularly contaminate medicine in the United States, in Europe.
00:10:21
Speaker
It's not just in countries like Brazil and Dominican Republic.
00:10:24
Speaker
It happens everywhere where the pharmacy will get a small amount of a drug and it'll mix in the other drugs.
00:10:30
Speaker
Normally, for most people who aren't drug tested, it doesn't matter.
00:10:33
Speaker
It's not going to really affect them.
00:10:34
Speaker
But if you're a drug tested athlete and you get a small amount of hydrochlorothiazide mixed into your medication for whatever, then you're going to test positive.
00:10:43
Speaker
So World Anti-Doping Agency has actually put out two technical letters, they're called, in the last two years, one to address meat contamination, one to address prescription drug contamination.
00:10:54
Speaker
And there are other ways too, but these are the primary ones right now that WADA is dealing with.
00:10:59
Speaker
Paul, listening to you, I'm thinking, but do athletes know about this?
00:11:05
Speaker
Like that they can drink water and suddenly they can face a suspension because of the anti-doping policy.
00:11:13
Speaker
I think it's really crazy to think that, yeah, how is this possible?
00:11:17
Speaker
Why is it up to them to prove that the water is contaminated?
00:11:22
Speaker
How are we in this system?
00:11:24
Speaker
It's a scary thought for athletes who have a high enough burden to try to avoid taking supplements that are contaminated and dealing with their performance every day to then worry about the water they drink, the food they eat.
00:11:38
Speaker
So yes, it is very scary.
00:11:39
Speaker
And that's why I think, in my view, a more equitable system would be the UFC system where the burden would shift and the athlete would get the benefit of the doubt, certainly at least the one time, the first time.
00:11:50
Speaker
WADA has a different view of it.
00:11:51
Speaker
And the strict liability standard says, and they'll even tell you, they'd almost rather do the opposite of what we learned in law school and criminal law, the Blackstonian ideal, which is 15th century English law, which is that I'd rather, you know, let a thousand guilty people go free than put one innocent man to death.
00:12:10
Speaker
That's what we think of when we're thinking of fairness.
00:12:12
Speaker
WADA is the opposite.
00:12:13
Speaker
They'd rather have an
00:12:16
Speaker
put to ruin two innocent athletes careers than let a guilty athlete go.
00:12:21
Speaker
And, you know, nobody wants intentional cheating.
00:12:25
Speaker
I don't think anyone wants that.
00:12:27
Speaker
But at the same time, I think the system is highly problematic.
00:12:30
Speaker
If you have innocent athletes who are ingesting through contamination, food or water, otherwise banned substances and losing their careers.
00:12:39
Speaker
I just think it undercuts the entire credibility of the system if that happens.
00:12:44
Speaker
And I talk to athletes clean every day.
00:12:46
Speaker
And I do these presentations trying to counsel them how to avoid this stuff.
00:12:49
Speaker
And they're all terrified.
00:12:51
Speaker
They're just really terrified.
00:12:54
Speaker
I would be terrified as well.
00:12:56
Speaker
You mentioned in that case with the tap water being contaminated with the drugs that you had to take a report of Environment Protection Agency, correct?
00:13:05
Speaker
So was it, just to understand the mechanics behind it, was it you as a lawyer together, or meaning outlet, requesting this report from the agency over there?
00:13:15
Speaker
Was this whole burden of you or you just by chance had it?
00:13:18
Speaker
Just to understand how do they source the proofs of their innocence when it's so complex?
00:13:24
Speaker
No, we had the burden there.
00:13:25
Speaker
This was pre-thresholds, pre-minimum reporting levels.
00:13:30
Speaker
We had to prove where it came from, and we had not a lot of time to do it before the Olympics.
00:13:35
Speaker
Ultimately, Kristen got a no-fault, and it was announced because this was pre-minimum reporting limits.
00:13:41
Speaker
Today, that case would never have come out, probably, given her level and what we were able to show.
00:13:46
Speaker
It would just have been dropped.
00:13:48
Speaker
But
00:13:49
Speaker
We had to find all those reports.
00:13:51
Speaker
We went to the EPA.
00:13:52
Speaker
We found the experts.
00:13:53
Speaker
We got an expert at a university who was willing to write a report for us based on what his findings were, what he knew.
00:14:00
Speaker
He testified and we found his name.
00:14:02
Speaker
So there was a lot of work that went into that.
00:14:05
Speaker
and in these kissing cases, which I've had several and also sex contamination cases, because scientifically these drugs can pass through saliva and also through bodily fluids.
00:14:15
Speaker
When you're having sex, it's just proven.
00:14:18
Speaker
And, uh, you know, it's happened several times and all those times we had to put it all together.
00:14:23
Speaker
We had to prove, uh,
00:14:24
Speaker
That there was, you know, we had to get affidavits from the boyfriends that they took these banned substances, that they had unprotected sex.
00:14:31
Speaker
When they had the unprotected sex, a lot of stuff like that.
00:14:35
Speaker
Hair sample analysis.
00:14:37
Speaker
There's a lot that went into us meeting our burden in those cases and convincing the anti-goping organization that, in fact, the athlete was entitled to a no fault because they could prove it was from sex or kissing.
00:14:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:50
Speaker
And sorry, I missed that.
00:14:52
Speaker
How many outlets are currently under investigation or disqualified because of containing MRL, minimum reporting limits, in the USA, for example, the area where you're more fluent?
00:15:05
Speaker
I mean, these are not – I wouldn't know all those numbers because a lot of times these cases won't come out, right?
00:15:10
Speaker
Because if it's an atypical finding, it's confidential, and then the case gets dropped.
00:15:14
Speaker
So –
00:15:15
Speaker
I don't know the exact numbers on how much, but I know that at least in our office, we're getting calls every all the time about this.
00:15:22
Speaker
So I know that people come to us from around the world to ask us about these cases.
00:15:26
Speaker
But I think they happen with alarming regularity.
00:15:31
Speaker
And, you know, I see other things that I haven't seen in cases yet, but studies like one that I saw where this was at a WADA accredited laboratory that did the study in the lab in Cologne, Germany, which I think is really an incredible lab, one of the best in the world.
00:15:47
Speaker
They do really, really great work.
00:15:48
Speaker
work in fairness studies.
00:15:50
Speaker
And I really, really admire those scientists.
00:15:52
Speaker
And they did a study on clomiphene, which is another banned substance that's given to chickens and how clomiphene can manifest its way into eggs that chickens lay and that people eat.
00:16:06
Speaker
And you can test positive for clomiphene by eating an egg.
00:16:10
Speaker
I eat eggs every morning.
00:16:12
Speaker
I mean, you know, now we have to have organic everything.
00:16:14
Speaker
I mean, and I really do tell athletes this now, you know, it's like organic meat, organic chicken, organic eggs, bottled water only, don't drink tap water.
00:16:25
Speaker
And if you're going to have sex with somebody, figure out who they are before you do it.
00:16:29
Speaker
I mean, it sounds crazy, but, you know, you have the burden to understand what you're doing, who you're kissing, who you're having sex with, because they might be doing drugs and they might be,
Driving Change in Anti-Doping Rules
00:16:39
Speaker
contaminating you without you knowing it.
00:16:42
Speaker
I'm not really very fun on these talks.
00:16:43
Speaker
People walk away, I think, really not loving it, but this is the information that needs to be conveyed.
00:16:49
Speaker
It's really interesting because, again, I go back to the point, how do these athletes survive?
00:16:53
Speaker
You know, they have to focus on competition.
00:16:55
Speaker
They have to think about their planning and then suddenly they have to think about eggs.
00:17:00
Speaker
So it's quite, it's tough, I mean, to figure out how to move in this ecosystem.
00:17:06
Speaker
So my question is, how,
00:17:08
Speaker
How can this system change?
00:17:11
Speaker
You mentioned before that in the past five or 10 years, there's been conversation.
00:17:17
Speaker
Do you mean conversation about changing the regulations or?
00:17:23
Speaker
Yeah, sure.
00:17:23
Speaker
And among the stakeholders at conferences, you know, the old Tackling, Doping and Support Conference or the Partnership for Clean Competition, which is
00:17:32
Speaker
going to have another conference in New York in April.
00:17:35
Speaker
They had one in London in 2019.
00:17:37
Speaker
And this was a topic of conversation at the Partnership for Clean Competition.
00:17:42
Speaker
And actually right after that, in May of 2019 was the first meat reporting limit for clenbuterol.
00:17:50
Speaker
That was the first time that they put anything in place.
00:17:52
Speaker
And that was really an experiment to see how it would work out.
00:17:56
Speaker
And then after the clenbuterol threshold seemed to work out well, the reporting limit, they put another one in for four other substances in last June.
00:18:04
Speaker
So this is an ongoing discussion and WADA is doing things to try and improve the system and it has improved.
00:18:11
Speaker
There are many, many athletes now under the new rules that are not getting anti-doping rule violations who would have in the past.
00:18:19
Speaker
So there is an improvement happening.
00:18:21
Speaker
I don't want to make it seem as if there isn't.
00:18:23
Speaker
WADA has improved the system, but the question is, is there more they can do?
00:18:28
Speaker
Are the athletes being consulted in this process, in these gatherings, conferences?
00:18:34
Speaker
Because I understand there are experts on the medical side, there are experts on the legal side, like you.
00:18:41
Speaker
Are athletes taken into consideration in these conversations?
00:18:45
Speaker
I think so.
00:18:45
Speaker
I mean, there's more now of a voice, too, for athletes among the WADA system.
00:18:50
Speaker
There's a WADA Athletes Committee, which is a pretty new thing.
00:18:54
Speaker
Within the last three to five years, it really hasn't been around.
00:18:57
Speaker
And then there are also athlete committees in the United States, like, as an example, the AAC, the Athlete Advisory Council for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, plays a big role.
00:19:08
Speaker
They'll provide their comments to U.S. Anti-Doping Agency when the new code comes out and that sort of thing.
00:19:13
Speaker
But primarily, the WADA code and its rules are drafted by WADA lawyers, WADA scientists, as they see fit.
00:19:23
Speaker
I mean, it's not collectively bargained in a system the way, let's say, let's use the NHL, National Hockey League.
00:19:32
Speaker
or any of the leagues in the United States, they're collectively bargained.
00:19:35
Speaker
So you have a players union and you have a league and they come to an agreement over what the rules are, over what the thresholds are, that sort of thing.
00:19:43
Speaker
That does not exist in the world of Olympic sport.
00:19:47
Speaker
The rules are put out and the athletes must adhere to them.
00:19:51
Speaker
And so, you know, off topic, but there's a whole debate about marijuana.
00:19:56
Speaker
And marijuana actually is a threshold substance, and the thresholds have gone up, but not enough that it still causes athletes to test
Vision for a Fairer Anti-Doping System
00:20:05
Speaker
positive.
00:20:05
Speaker
And how do we handle substances of abuse?
00:20:09
Speaker
Almost every other sport has taken them completely off the list, cocaine and marijuana, but they're still on the list for Iwata.
00:20:16
Speaker
And so these are ongoing debates.
00:20:19
Speaker
So I would say the athlete role is pretty limited, truthfully.
00:20:23
Speaker
Nobody's asking me.
00:20:24
Speaker
Let's put it that way.
00:20:27
Speaker
It is also a bit unfortunate.
00:20:29
Speaker
And who else is interested in this change, in driving this change?
00:20:33
Speaker
So as I understand, there are athletes, their voices are not very profound in this process so far.
00:20:38
Speaker
There are lawyers, coaches.
00:20:41
Speaker
Who are other stakeholders in this process besides International Federations and WADA and IOC?
00:20:47
Speaker
Well, you've got the national anti-doping organizations too.
00:20:49
Speaker
And in the United States, for example, Travis Tigert and USADA, US Anti-Doping Agency, have been very, very vocal about the need for thresholds.
00:20:57
Speaker
Travis has really led the charge on this.
00:20:59
Speaker
And in fact, with the UFC has created this program that I said was really the model.
00:21:04
Speaker
But when it comes to the US Anti-Doping Agency having to follow the water code, they've got to pull the thresholds that are there.
00:21:11
Speaker
So for UFC, they might have a burden shift, but they can't do it for the water cases because they're a signatory.
00:21:17
Speaker
They have to do what the rules say.
00:21:19
Speaker
And so there are advocates to make the system more fair.
00:21:23
Speaker
But ultimately, there's so many signatories and so many people involved in the way the water process is put together that
00:21:30
Speaker
that it's difficult to enact change.
00:21:35
Speaker
It's a very slow moving ship, I would say.
00:21:39
Speaker
Thank you very much, Paul, for this detailed explanation.
00:21:41
Speaker
It is impressive to witness how the whole system is slow in changing and how innocent athletes are victims in this process.
00:21:49
Speaker
I don't think it's really fair, right, Donato?
00:21:54
Speaker
Not at all.
00:21:56
Speaker
And I think it is time now to jump to the second part of our conversation, our desired future.
00:22:06
Speaker
Paul, what ideal future have you taken us to?
00:22:10
Speaker
What do you imagine a more fair and effective anti-doping system?
00:22:16
Speaker
Well, I think there has to be more uniformity on how we get to certain thresholds and how we get to certain reporting limits.
00:22:24
Speaker
And I think that there should be some transparency in terms of explaining to athletes why we're at certain levels.
00:22:32
Speaker
Like, as an example, you know, why is it five nanograms per mil for xerenol?
00:22:39
Speaker
And why is it if you're at 5.2 or 5.3,
00:22:43
Speaker
you're above the threshold, but 4.9, you're below.
00:22:46
Speaker
I understand there needs to be a cutoff at some point, but how are we getting to these cutoffs?
00:22:51
Speaker
Why did we decide on five?
00:22:53
Speaker
And there's also, it's not entirely clear sometimes when these are implemented, if they include the metabolites, if they don't include the metabolites, these are questions that aren't always flushed out and athletes don't fully understand what they even mean.
00:23:07
Speaker
So I think more transparency,
00:23:10
Speaker
maybe a committee that comes out and posts and explains,
00:23:14
Speaker
with, you know, publicly why these thresholds were implemented, what the levels were and why.
00:23:19
Speaker
I think that would be helpful.
00:23:21
Speaker
And then I would encourage them to look at more substances than they're on the list or the UFC list has more substances than, than the list that WADA has.
00:23:31
Speaker
And I think that, again, these are policy decisions that are made sometimes not by scientists about deciding certain substances and not others.
00:23:40
Speaker
So I,
00:23:42
Speaker
I would say, you know, we still haven't gotten all the way there.
00:23:44
Speaker
And I think that there could be more fairness, more transparency, more substances added.
00:23:49
Speaker
And also the burden shift.
00:23:50
Speaker
I really think it's important that the burden would shift to athletes if we're going to create a really a system that's truly more fair.
00:23:58
Speaker
There is still an athlete out there.
00:24:00
Speaker
who will eat meat and not be able to figure out where the meat came from, who's going to end up getting an unfair ban because they can't establish where it came from to the satisfaction of that anti-doping organization.
00:24:11
Speaker
And it's going to go from an atypical finding to an anti-doping rule violation, even though they consumed it through contamination.
00:24:18
Speaker
And that just doesn't seem right to me.
00:24:22
Speaker
When you mentioned about the burden shift within this ideal scenario, so when it's identified that there is this atypical finding, so what do you mean by burden shift?
00:24:33
Speaker
So it should be up to WADA or to the International Federation to prove that the athlete is actually guilty so that he took this substance intentionally, correct?
00:24:44
Speaker
Correct.
00:24:45
Speaker
So, you know, let's do an investigation.
00:24:48
Speaker
I think that's a great idea.
00:24:50
Speaker
Let's investigate and see what the athlete can come up with.
00:24:52
Speaker
Let's do an interview with the athlete.
00:24:54
Speaker
Let's see if the athlete's credible.
00:24:56
Speaker
Let's do a hair sample analysis of the athlete and see if the athlete's hair comes up
Financial Challenges for Athletes
00:25:00
Speaker
clean.
00:25:00
Speaker
A lot of times hair sample analysis can be extremely useful in terms of a tool, because if you're a regular user of one of these drugs, it's going to be in your hair.
00:25:12
Speaker
there's no way around it.
00:25:14
Speaker
And I've effectively used hair sample analysis to show that an athlete was clean and it's not foolproof, meaning you could use it one time intentionally and it won't necessarily be in your hair.
00:25:27
Speaker
But I think these are all tools, right?
00:25:28
Speaker
I mean, you could, I've even used and utilized lie detector tests, polygraphs and athletes have passed those.
00:25:36
Speaker
I think we use these types of tools to look at and evaluate the case and, you
00:25:41
Speaker
If we think the athlete's cheating, look, I'm not going to put my reputation on the line for any athlete I think is cheating.
00:25:46
Speaker
So I'll withdraw from a case if I think the athlete is and they're not telling me the truth.
00:25:51
Speaker
But I just think the athlete, it's a matter of who you're going to give the benefit of the doubt to.
00:25:56
Speaker
And and I just think the first time when you're at a super low level of a drug like this, that's known to be in the environment, give the athlete the benefit of the doubt and prove they took it intentionally.
00:26:09
Speaker
When you say about burden shift, does it mean also financial burden shift, meaning that this investigation and all those proceedings would be covered by the investigation party or by the athlete or not?
00:26:23
Speaker
That's actually a great point, Sasha, that the athlete has the burden financially to prove all these things.
00:26:29
Speaker
And it's a really high burden.
00:26:30
Speaker
And sometimes athletes will actually just give up and accept the burden, the sanction, because they just don't have the money.
00:26:37
Speaker
You know, when I tell an athlete, you're going to have to do hair sample analysis and you're going to have to hire an expert and then you're going to have to test all your supplements and then you're going to have to try to find a meat expert.
00:26:47
Speaker
And then we might have to find, you know, a polygraph test expert.
00:26:53
Speaker
You're talking about 30, 40, $50,000 in experts sometimes to move forward.
00:26:59
Speaker
And that's a lot of money.
00:27:01
Speaker
What I remember has an endless supply of experts.
00:27:05
Speaker
They can go to any of their experts in any of these labs and they'll just testify for that.
00:27:10
Speaker
And athletes.
00:27:11
Speaker
have to pay for it.
00:27:13
Speaker
Also, interestingly, any WADA accredited laboratory scientist is not allowed to testify for an athlete.
00:27:21
Speaker
So that severely limits the pool of who can testify credibly for athletes anyway.
00:27:26
Speaker
That's really a separate point.
00:27:27
Speaker
But there's a code of conduct for laboratories that prevents them from testifying on behalf of athletes.
00:27:32
Speaker
I think that's a really unfortunate rule.
00:27:34
Speaker
And if I was going to create a more fair world, I would also say that rule should not exist because what are we trying to hide?
00:27:41
Speaker
I mean, if a different lab can come in and help the athlete and offer a second opinion, why wouldn't we encourage that to happen?
00:27:50
Speaker
It doesn't make any sense to kind of freeze out people, but it's really a circle the wagons mentality where it's them against everybody else.
00:27:58
Speaker
And I really don't think it should be that way.
00:28:00
Speaker
I think it can be more collaborative.
00:28:03
Speaker
It really seems that also the anti-doping institutions in your ideal future have been reformed, have changed in a way.
00:28:11
Speaker
What would be these key changes?
00:28:13
Speaker
You mentioned before about transparency.
00:28:16
Speaker
What values can these institutions have in order to be better?
00:28:23
Speaker
Well, I feel like the case law says, going back in time, that the burden is equally on the
00:28:31
Speaker
the burdens equally on the anti-doping laboratories and on those scientists as it is on the athlete to be held to the highest standard of strict liability, to be completely transparent, to come clean all the time.
00:28:43
Speaker
But I've had situations where mistakes have been made by laboratories, and I won't get specific, but mistakes have been made by laboratories.
00:28:51
Speaker
Testimony of laboratories has been far from convincing.
00:28:57
Speaker
And they have not suffered the same consequences that athletes have suffered.
00:29:01
Speaker
So I feel like they need to police the system as well.
00:29:05
Speaker
And if somebody on that side needs to be sanctioned, needs to be suspended, there are rules in place for that.
00:29:10
Speaker
And I think they also need to be applied with the same rigor that we're applying the rules to sanction athletes.
00:29:15
Speaker
Because the burden is impossibly high on athletes, but it's not as impossibly high on the other side, even though it should be.
00:29:24
Speaker
What are, saying on the discussion around stakeholders, what are other key stakeholders in your ideal future that have taken more predominance or maybe they have reduced their say?
00:29:38
Speaker
So we mentioned athletes and their rights.
00:29:41
Speaker
We mentioned about anti-doping authorities.
00:29:44
Speaker
Who else is leading a change in your ideal future?
00:29:50
Speaker
Can you repeat that and say it in another way?
00:29:52
Speaker
I'm not sure I got it.
00:29:54
Speaker
What stakeholders are having a key role in your ideal future in addition to athletes, to anti-doping agencies?
00:30:04
Speaker
So I'm thinking, for instance, do international federations play a leading role?
00:30:10
Speaker
Maybe government, because we're talking about sanctions, NGOs, think tanks that can share... NOCs that can lead educational programs.
00:30:23
Speaker
Sure.
00:30:23
Speaker
I think all of the above.
00:30:26
Speaker
Actually, interestingly, at the International Federation level, the cases are becoming very consolidated.
00:30:33
Speaker
There's the International Testing Authority now, the ITA in Lausanne, and also the CAS ad hoc division.
00:30:39
Speaker
And so where you used to have all the anti-doping, all the IFs and the anti-doping organizations handling the cases on their own, they're now being handled by a smaller and smaller group.
00:30:49
Speaker
So you've got, you know, one group of lawyers now in Lausanne maybe doing cases for 15 or 20 federations.
00:30:57
Speaker
I think that that lends itself to more consolidation could be good since it's efficient, but it also could lead to less innovation.
00:31:05
Speaker
And so,
00:31:07
Speaker
there's less voices that are creating input, creating a better model maybe.
00:31:13
Speaker
There is, of course, the opportunity for every international federation and all the national anti-doping organizations to make stakeholder comments every year on the prohibited list.
00:31:25
Speaker
And then when the code gets revised, which is every six years, there's a big process where all the stakeholders get to make comments.
00:31:32
Speaker
And in fact, the substances of abuse provision was changed
00:31:37
Speaker
in the 2021 code because it was such an outcry among all the stakeholders between 2015 and 2021 that they had to do something because they initially were going to do the 2015 code and it got taken out at the very last minute.
00:31:49
Speaker
And then they went back in because if you read the 2018, 2019 comments, every one of them was about, we can't keep giving four years for marijuana.
00:31:58
Speaker
It's absolutely crazy.
00:31:59
Speaker
It's creating way too many cases for us.
00:32:01
Speaker
We need to change this.
00:32:02
Speaker
We need to do something.
00:32:04
Speaker
And so they did.
00:32:06
Speaker
You mentioned before, and you actually mentioned about it, that you would speak about it when you talk about future, about the UFC system.
00:32:14
Speaker
So where the minimum reporting limits, so when you...
00:32:20
Speaker
The amount of substance in your blood is below the minimum reporting limit.
00:32:24
Speaker
So the burden, so it's not up to Atlet to prove that he is innocent.
00:32:28
Speaker
It's up to the organization, correct?
00:32:31
Speaker
So what are the other anti-doping programs that exist in parallel or separately from WADA that we could take examples from?
00:32:41
Speaker
The professional leagues also have, in the US, also have anti-doping programs, Major League Baseball, National Hockey League.
00:32:51
Speaker
National Football League and, you know, they all have their own National Basketball Association, then the women's leagues as well.
00:33:00
Speaker
But they don't have that many cases in comparison.
00:33:02
Speaker
So I think the UFC model is more towards the Olympic model because it's more international in scope.
00:33:07
Speaker
There's more athletes.
00:33:10
Speaker
Remember, you're talking about not in all baseball, there's very few players as compared to the number of players that are athletes around the world.
00:33:18
Speaker
So it's a smaller pool.
00:33:20
Speaker
But those leagues have also gone more towards a threshold model and more towards a UFC type model where –
00:33:28
Speaker
You know, athletes have have a greater stake in the process for sure.
00:33:32
Speaker
The biggest thing to realize about the WADA system as compared to these other systems also, and that includes the UFC, is the sanctions are so much harsher.
00:33:41
Speaker
Four years ends your career.
00:33:43
Speaker
And in the UFC, two years is the maximum sanction.
00:33:47
Speaker
In baseball, for a first defense, it's half a season.
00:33:51
Speaker
So it's impressive, the difference in numbers.
00:33:54
Speaker
It is really impressive.
00:33:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:56
Speaker
So you're talking the sanctions are so harsh and it wasn't always that way.
00:34:01
Speaker
Before 2015, two years was the max.
00:34:04
Speaker
I honestly think we should go back to that system as a default.
00:34:07
Speaker
I think two years was more fair than four.
00:34:10
Speaker
And everybody will say that I'm being soft and I'm just an athlete's lawyer, but I don't think so.
00:34:15
Speaker
I think there's an opportunity to make two the default where you could still go to four, depending on the circumstance when you investigate.
00:34:23
Speaker
And then you could come down below two depending on the circumstance.
00:34:25
Speaker
That is the case for a lot of substances already today.
00:34:28
Speaker
Specified substances are already default two years that could go to four depending on what they call aggravated circumstances.
00:34:36
Speaker
There's also nonspecified substances that are considered the more serious drugs that are minimum start with four.
00:34:42
Speaker
And it's a lot harder to prove those.
00:34:44
Speaker
So when you look at specified substances today, I think that's a model that we should go back to for all substances.
00:34:52
Speaker
I just think four years when you're talking about unintentional use in a lot of these cases is so unfair that it makes the whole system just, you know, what I would say makes the system, you know, what we want it to be, which is that it makes the system a deterrent.
00:35:09
Speaker
I don't think it really deters anyone.
00:35:12
Speaker
I think it's just a matter of deciding what the appropriate punishment is.
00:35:16
Speaker
I think realistically, while it may serve as some deterrent, and I've heard this discussion even back to law school when I was in law school over 20 years ago about criminal law and is it going to serve as a deterrent.
00:35:27
Speaker
I just don't think it is a deterrent.
00:35:28
Speaker
I mean, that's kind of an ambitious way of looking at any code or rules, but I don't think it's going to be a deterrent.
00:35:34
Speaker
I think the way to look at it is what's the most fair sanction here?
00:35:39
Speaker
So if I were to create the world, I'd go back to the pre-2015 code for sanctions as well and say we're going to start with two years for all substances as a default.
00:35:48
Speaker
It's actually the first time in our podcast when we go back to create a better future.
00:35:53
Speaker
But let me summarize or wrap up somehow how we see your desired or ideal future.
00:36:02
Speaker
So there is more the pillars of unity, transparency, the values of unity and transparency.
00:36:09
Speaker
Logistically, it's more the threshold model and the burden of shift when the amount of substances is below that threshold.
00:36:17
Speaker
So the burden of shift should, sorry, the burden of proof should be on the organization side rather than an athlete side.
00:36:25
Speaker
Correct?
00:36:25
Speaker
Then less suspension, immediate suspension for years.
00:36:29
Speaker
It is too harsh.
00:36:30
Speaker
It destroys careers sometimes, especially in sports like gymnastics, where it's very short, career is very short.
00:36:36
Speaker
And am I missing something, Donata?
00:36:41
Speaker
I would add the importance of reasoning on the whys.
00:36:44
Speaker
So Paul said that his ideal future is a future where stakeholders ask themselves the whys of things.
00:36:50
Speaker
Why this substance?
00:36:52
Speaker
They explain the why of the cis substance to the athletes.
00:36:56
Speaker
So it's really clear to everyone and it's really enhancing the accountability of both the process and the outcomes.
00:37:03
Speaker
I like the part where we speak about transparency and education.
00:37:07
Speaker
I think many athletes are oblivious to what is happening to the whole list of substances.
00:37:13
Speaker
There are famous cases when athletes that are with a big entourage and agents missed some information, very important information about certain substances.
00:37:24
Speaker
I do think education is critically important.
00:37:27
Speaker
There is a new international standard for education.
00:37:30
Speaker
That's also an improvement.
00:37:31
Speaker
And I do think that we're making progress on that.
00:37:34
Speaker
Watt is making progress.
00:37:35
Speaker
But I just think you can't have enough education.
00:37:39
Speaker
Education, I think, could ultimately prevent a lot of these cases, particularly in.
00:37:45
Speaker
Remember, there's a lot of ways you can test positive or or committing anti-doping rule violation even without testing positive.
00:37:50
Speaker
There's whereabouts cases where athletes get three misses or three filing failures in a 12 month period and get a minimum 12 month ban.
00:37:58
Speaker
So you've got in those cases, athletes didn't even take any banned substance, but they're still maybe having their career ruined for not being where they said they were going to be, forgetting to update their whereabouts when they went out and stayed out at a bar instead of going back to their hotel, those sorts of things.
00:38:14
Speaker
Yeah, they have a harsh life in forming every time where they're moving.
00:38:19
Speaker
And if they forget, it may also end up in a four year suspension with no such cases recently.
00:38:25
Speaker
And then I suggest we start moving backwards.
00:38:33
Speaker
So what are the important milestones in this pathway from future back to the present?
00:38:40
Speaker
Well, I think maybe even let's go back to 1998 and figure out what were we doing here?
00:38:45
Speaker
Why did we create WADA?
00:38:46
Speaker
Why did the system get created?
00:38:49
Speaker
Initially, you've got a lot of athletes just flouting, openly cheating intentionally.
00:38:55
Speaker
There was no athlete biological passport, so they had no way to monitor blood levels.
00:39:00
Speaker
There was no steroid biological passport, so there was no way to monitor steroid levels.
00:39:05
Speaker
There was blood doping happening in the buses of cycling teams at the Tour de France.
00:39:11
Speaker
There was open steroid use happening in all sorts of Olympic settings.
00:39:17
Speaker
There was no testing whatsoever.
00:39:20
Speaker
And so World Anti-Doping Agency was created and it took about six years to implement around all the federations.
00:39:26
Speaker
This idea of let's stop intentional cheaters from ruining sport.
00:39:30
Speaker
from having a performance enhancing and benefit and advantage so that people believe what they see.
00:39:36
Speaker
And I think that that's still a great aspirational goal and really what the point of the system is.
00:39:42
Speaker
But what's happened over the last five, 10 years is the pendulum has swung to the point now where we have all the blood of all the athletes from the athlete biological passport.
00:39:51
Speaker
We have all the steroid profiles.
00:39:53
Speaker
So we know if somebody has an irregular passport, it's very difficult to blood dope when you have your blood being taken every month.
00:40:00
Speaker
It's very difficult to take steroids when they're testing you at any time of day, 24 hours a day.
Historical Perspective on WADA
00:40:06
Speaker
And there is still intentional cheating, but it's so much less than it was.
00:40:11
Speaker
the percentages are way lower than they were 20 plus years ago and probably even 10 years ago.
00:40:17
Speaker
So we're at a point now where the battle really seems to have become more about what happens at these low level cases where we can now detect so low on the other side.
00:40:28
Speaker
And it's likely that a lot of these athletes are innocent, but getting banned anyway.
00:40:32
Speaker
How do we handle that?
00:40:34
Speaker
And I still think that that's – you have to have the balance.
00:40:37
Speaker
But I think if you look back, I think maybe the system has gotten a little carried away on the other side in terms of where they started out and where they've ended up.
00:40:51
Speaker
So I mean, from protecting the sport now to not protecting the athletes, sorry.
00:40:57
Speaker
We have cases where we have to have athletes get up and testify about who they had sex with.
00:41:01
Speaker
I mean, that's absurd.
00:41:03
Speaker
How are we litigating such stuff?
00:41:06
Speaker
How did we get to the point where these types of cases are cases that are happening?
00:41:10
Speaker
There was a case last year where thankfully it was figured out, but an athlete put sunscreen on that ended up leading to a banned substance.
00:41:18
Speaker
And USADA's science director did a scientific experiment on himself to figure this out and actually ended up testing positive.
00:41:26
Speaker
And so they figured it out, but nobody knew about that.
00:41:28
Speaker
And this guy really was facing a career-ending ban for putting sunscreen on.
00:41:33
Speaker
I mean, so these are the cases that I'm seeing now all the time, this study being put out about egg contamination, like I mentioned.
00:41:40
Speaker
Or if you've seen Heio Seppelt's documentary, the German documentary filmmaker who's famous for his incredible research.
00:41:48
Speaker
work in the doping space on now you can have somebody walk by with a cream on their fingers, put it on your arm and you can be contaminated and test above a threshold.
00:41:57
Speaker
And some of those substances don't even have a threshold.
00:42:00
Speaker
So, I mean, what happens now if you're out the night before dinner for the Olympic final and somebody walks out and stuck something on your arm causes you to test positive and you're going to get a four year ban for that.
00:42:12
Speaker
So in your ideal future, this is not happening, right?
00:42:16
Speaker
Right, we don't have these cases anymore.
00:42:19
Speaker
I mean, we still have contamination cases because this is the world we live in, but we don't have these absurdities in dealing with these cases.
00:42:27
Speaker
How is, for instance, the burden shift happened in the future?
00:42:32
Speaker
Is it a change in the WADA code, for instance?
00:42:37
Speaker
Is it a proposal made by WADA members?
00:42:41
Speaker
How has this changed in your future?
00:42:44
Speaker
It would have to be a change to the WADA code, I think.
00:42:48
Speaker
It could probably be implemented through the international standards.
00:42:51
Speaker
It wouldn't have to necessarily be in the code because the code incorporates also the international standards, what are called technical documents, technical letters.
00:43:00
Speaker
They're all binding, just the same as the code.
00:43:02
Speaker
It's not just the code.
00:43:04
Speaker
So it wouldn't have to be every six years.
00:43:06
Speaker
It could be through through one of these international standards.
00:43:11
Speaker
By the way, the prohibited list is an international standard, the international standard that governs laboratories, international standard that governs testing and all these technical documents.
00:43:20
Speaker
I think you could do it in various ways.
00:43:23
Speaker
But however you do it, it's got to come from WADA as a legislator making the decision that this is going to happen.
00:43:29
Speaker
That's the only way it's ever going to happen.
00:43:31
Speaker
And in my discussions that I've had publicly about this respectfully, but publicly, you know, in debate settings at law and sport conference in various places with the lawyers for WADA, they're not going to go here.
00:43:43
Speaker
It's just not going to happen.
00:43:44
Speaker
They feel like it's a bridge too far.
00:43:46
Speaker
And so we may never get there to the UFC world on the WADA side.
00:43:50
Speaker
Maybe we will at some point because perhaps 10 years ago, nobody would have said we'll get to where we are now with the minimum reporting limits we now have.
00:43:58
Speaker
So I guess nobody can really foresee how the future will be.
00:44:04
Speaker
But who can influence it?
00:44:06
Speaker
So who can influence VADA to change the code or change international standards and implement those best cases, best case practices like UFC?
00:44:18
Speaker
I think the stakeholders internally will have to really say, this needs to happen.
00:44:26
Speaker
We put these changes in place through the technical documents, but we're still seeing that more needs to happen and we need to go to this extra level.
00:44:35
Speaker
I mean, I know there are stakeholders already advocating for this.
00:44:39
Speaker
And to this point, they're pretty steadfast that they won't go to a burden shift model.
00:44:49
Speaker
By internal stakeholders, do you mean national and developing agencies, international federation?
00:44:54
Speaker
These scientists on the inside who may not say it publicly, but would say it in a private meeting where they feel like it's more fair to do that.
00:45:01
Speaker
There's a lot of people like that who are really good people in the water system.
00:45:05
Speaker
There's many, many good people who've devoted their lives, who work for water labs, work at legal, et cetera, who feel like these changes should happen.
00:45:14
Speaker
But
00:45:15
Speaker
you know, they wouldn't say it publicly because it's too much.
00:45:19
Speaker
It's too difficult for them politically to come out and say such a thing.
00:45:24
Speaker
There's a lot of advocacy work that has to be done, as I understand.
00:45:30
Speaker
And I'm wondering if it's as difficult when it comes to education.
00:45:35
Speaker
So we discussed that in the future, athletes are very well educated and informed, so there is a level of transparency and disclosure of information from the key leading anti-doping institutions like WADA.
00:45:49
Speaker
what
Education and Media's Role in Anti-Doping
00:45:50
Speaker
else can be done or has been done in order to achieve more education
00:45:59
Speaker
I'm thinking, can more transfer knowledge forums be organized?
00:46:04
Speaker
And who can do that to empower athletes to know more?
00:46:10
Speaker
Is it a role for you as a sport lawyer, because you've developed an amazing knowledge and expertise on the subject, or is it up to national institutions or national education bodies?
00:46:24
Speaker
What's your thinking about this?
00:46:25
Speaker
How can we plan for a better education?
00:46:28
Speaker
Well, again, I think it's everyone involved should do their best at the touch points they have to educate better.
00:46:35
Speaker
I try to do that where I can.
00:46:36
Speaker
I speak to national governing bodies in the United States abroad.
00:46:40
Speaker
I've spoken on these issues and try to encourage athletes only take certified supplements.
00:46:46
Speaker
that's another thing that UFC has now done is they're giving their athletes certified for sports supplements through their performance center.
00:46:53
Speaker
And they've eliminated 80 to 90% of their cases period, because a lot of cases still come from contaminated supplements.
00:47:01
Speaker
And we've come a long way on that too, because there was only maybe one certification service five years ago.
00:47:05
Speaker
Now you've got three or four that are all reputable and now thousands of supplements out there are certified.
00:47:11
Speaker
So yeah,
00:47:13
Speaker
Yes, to the extent I can do it.
00:47:14
Speaker
But I mean, there's over 200 countries that are signatories.
00:47:17
Speaker
And I think it's it's the responsibility.
00:47:19
Speaker
It starts with every Olympic committee in every one of those countries and then to trickle on down to the national governing bodies of every one of those countries to educate the athletes in each one of those countries.
00:47:29
Speaker
So you have, you know, the Botswana Swimming Federation needs to do it.
00:47:33
Speaker
And, you know,
00:47:35
Speaker
the Puerto Rican basketball federation and the Mexican table tennis federation, every single one needs to educate their athletes needs to understand.
00:47:44
Speaker
Now this takes money.
00:47:45
Speaker
I mean, you have to educate athletes.
00:47:47
Speaker
You need money.
00:47:48
Speaker
You need funds.
00:47:50
Speaker
It's better in person than on a zoom when half the people aren't paying attention.
00:47:55
Speaker
But a webinar, I'd say, is a good way to start and try to raise these issues.
00:48:00
Speaker
Whereabouts problems?
00:48:01
Speaker
You know, a lot of the national anti-doping organizations also do education.
00:48:05
Speaker
There's portals online that athletes have to follow and read and look at and pass tests before they get put in the out-of-competition testing pools.
00:48:13
Speaker
There is a lot of education out there.
00:48:16
Speaker
At some point, the problem also becomes, even with all this education, athletes just don't think it'll happen to them.
00:48:22
Speaker
So they're really not paying attention.
00:48:24
Speaker
And even in the United States, you've got collegiate athletes who are beholden to different rules, who then all of a sudden end up in the NCAA, from the NCAA system to the WADA system without really getting a full understanding of the difference.
00:48:39
Speaker
And there are different ways that NCAA treats medicines than WADA treats medicines.
00:48:44
Speaker
And so athletes get in trouble there too.
00:48:47
Speaker
And what about journalism?
00:48:50
Speaker
Does media play a role?
00:48:52
Speaker
What is their responsibility?
00:48:53
Speaker
Is it positive or negative if athletes get to know more about anti-doping through press?
00:49:03
Speaker
I mean, I would say that it's great if we could have responsible journalists who truly understand this stuff provide education for athletes.
00:49:10
Speaker
But there aren't too many reporters in the world that really know what they're talking about when it comes to this kind of stuff.
00:49:17
Speaker
There's just a handful.
00:49:18
Speaker
And the vast majority of coverage of cases that I'm involved with, they just don't understand what they're talking about.
00:49:26
Speaker
So I think sometimes it can be dangerous, too, if you misreport information.
00:49:32
Speaker
It's a lot of technical information to understand, to report, and lots of details to understand,
00:49:39
Speaker
to report on, to make it a proper piece.
00:49:43
Speaker
This is exactly what I was thinking, discussing with you now about these technical terms and very specific medical implications.
00:49:54
Speaker
Perhaps part of these milestones to reach your ideal future is really the idea of simplifying the storytelling and the narrative of anti-doping cases and
00:50:05
Speaker
how to improve the system, do no harm, and so on.
00:50:10
Speaker
And I think that this is connected with another question I had, what you mentioned before, about the risks of consolidation that can lead to less innovation.
00:50:21
Speaker
So how do you see a system where innovation is helping the anti-doping system mechanisms?
00:50:31
Speaker
How is innovation happening?
00:50:33
Speaker
Is it technological information?
00:50:35
Speaker
innovation.
00:50:37
Speaker
Can you explain a little bit more on this topic?
Need for Innovation and Immediate Actions
00:50:41
Speaker
Well, I think innovation would be reacting to the current situation and how it's changing and continually transforming.
00:50:49
Speaker
And so that's where I see innovation happening.
00:50:52
Speaker
And one specific example, again, I would say an innovative approach now is the way
00:50:59
Speaker
A lot of these leagues and the UFC specifically, but other leagues as well are now providing supplements to their athletes that are certified.
00:51:09
Speaker
In 2008, the IOC did a study, 70% of the athletes at the Beijing Olympics were taking supplements.
00:51:15
Speaker
At the time, there was practically no way of policing this, of telling athletes how to have safe supplements.
00:51:22
Speaker
They didn't really exist, these certification companies.
00:51:26
Speaker
And the approach to some of these anti-doping organizations like the British, I remember we had this discussion one time at a panel discussion, I was at London.
00:51:33
Speaker
Their approach was, well, just don't take any supplements, period.
00:51:37
Speaker
That's like telling a high school kid not to have sex.
00:51:39
Speaker
I mean, with all due respect, it's a ridiculous position to tell an athlete not to take supplements.
00:51:44
Speaker
They're going to.
00:51:45
Speaker
The question is, how do you provide the opportunity for safe supplements?
00:51:49
Speaker
How do you give them the opportunity to take iron if they need it or to take vitamin C if they need it or protein powder?
00:51:58
Speaker
And so innovation to me is providing athletes the opportunity now with safe vitamins, safe supplements.
00:52:04
Speaker
That is an improvement.
00:52:07
Speaker
As I understand correctly, so if we move towards the desired future, there should be some internal moves within internal stakeholders and the water code should change and international standards of water should change.
00:52:24
Speaker
This can be influenced also from outside by proper journalism, by athletes' voices to be heard.
00:52:31
Speaker
And of course, by creating a certified, um, sub certified supplements, production companies and, uh, creating the list of safe supplements and list of safe substances to be consumed.
00:52:44
Speaker
Do I understand it correctly?
00:52:45
Speaker
You, you do.
00:52:46
Speaker
And there are various ways that that actually exists now, but I'm not sure that it exists for every athlete in the same uniform way.
00:52:54
Speaker
And certain parts of the world, athletes have more education and more access and other parts of the world, they have less.
00:53:00
Speaker
And so, I mean, I've done cases in more than close to 60 countries now.
00:53:06
Speaker
Countries are not all the same in terms of resources, in terms of the amount of education the athletes get and the opportunities they get.
00:53:14
Speaker
So, I mean, part of my goal is to be able to help athletes in small corners of the world too, where they otherwise don't get that opportunity to have a voice.
00:53:25
Speaker
And I suggest with this, we move to the final part of our discussion.
00:53:35
Speaker
Final and perhaps more interesting because Paul, we would like to ask you what would be your call for immediate action today to achieve this desired future?
00:53:48
Speaker
Who should start acting today, right now?
00:53:51
Speaker
I mean, I don't know.
00:53:52
Speaker
I don't know how to accomplish that.
00:53:55
Speaker
I'm not sure I can snap my fingers and make that happen.
00:53:58
Speaker
I think that there...
00:54:01
Speaker
There need to be more open communications, I would think.
00:54:04
Speaker
Again, more transparent discussions.
00:54:06
Speaker
I think about the way to move forward.
00:54:10
Speaker
And there are a lot of committees and that sort of thing that WADA has, but they don't really, they have minutes, but a lot of the meetings are done in secret and athletes don't have any idea what's going on.
00:54:22
Speaker
So, I mean, I don't know the way to do that, but I think to make athletes feel more emboldened, more empowered and more part of the system,
00:54:30
Speaker
in some way so they feel like they actually have a greater voice.
00:54:34
Speaker
And yes, there are athlete committees, but I don't think all athletes feel like those committees who are mostly retired athletes really have their voice when they're speaking.
00:54:48
Speaker
And by the way, maybe the partnership clean competition will be an opportunity.
00:54:53
Speaker
It's the first time they're gonna have it in four years in New York in April in 2023.
00:54:58
Speaker
There were a lot more conferences that used to happen than there are now.
00:55:04
Speaker
There hasn't really been a worldwide conference.
00:55:06
Speaker
There used to be what was called again, the Tackling, Doping and Sport Conference every year that brought all the stakeholders together.
00:55:12
Speaker
We had a lot of panel discussions.
00:55:13
Speaker
I think were very helpful.
00:55:15
Speaker
We haven't had that conference in a number of years.
00:55:18
Speaker
And because of COVID, we haven't had an in-person conference really in, you know, I'd say four years.
00:55:23
Speaker
I mean, World Anti-Doping Agency has a symposium, but only really stakeholders are invited.
00:55:28
Speaker
So we couldn't even go to that conference if we wanted to.
00:55:32
Speaker
So you're not considered as a stakeholder?
00:55:35
Speaker
No, I'm an outside athlete who's just a rabble rouser.
00:55:39
Speaker
This is weird.
00:55:41
Speaker
So do you have another question, Tanara?
00:55:43
Speaker
No?
00:55:45
Speaker
I just wanted to wrap up and to summarize what we've discussed today to understand better and maybe so it stays in our memory this way.
00:55:55
Speaker
So we're talking about the future where there is unity, a lot of transparency, where with a trash hole model,
00:56:03
Speaker
taken from UFC or coping a little bit UFC example where the burden of proof is shifted from outlet to
00:56:17
Speaker
to an institution.
00:56:18
Speaker
Only in cases when they're below that.
00:56:21
Speaker
Yeah, we are talking about MRLs, minimum reporting limits.
00:56:25
Speaker
Yeah, not about all doping consumption.
00:56:27
Speaker
And of course, when it's proven that it's unintentional or when it goes per se, that it was unintentional intake of this substance somehow.
00:56:36
Speaker
And we mentioned about the list of specified substances or the list of the certified supplements as well.
00:56:45
Speaker
that some of the producers of the supplements could be certified by Iwada, this would help a great deal.
00:56:51
Speaker
Am I missing something in the desired future, Donata?
00:56:54
Speaker
I would definitely add the importance of the education, to have more aware athletes of their rights, but also their responsibilities, and a more active role that they play in defining the policy and what's right for them and for their situations.
00:57:15
Speaker
And said that, I think that we can move to milestones, to our action plan to achieve this desired future.
00:57:25
Speaker
Definitely, we need more cooperation among the key stakeholders and sharing knowledge and best practices.
00:57:34
Speaker
We need the leading institutions to be talking to each other to understand their best practices and how this can be implemented in their own ways.
00:57:44
Speaker
system.
00:57:45
Speaker
We need more education so athletes have a clear path on how to be more knowledgeable about these substances and also there has to be a movement towards an internal shift in the mindset of these key leading institutions.
00:58:05
Speaker
Are we missing something?
00:58:08
Speaker
No, I think that's all good.
00:58:10
Speaker
I mean, I think the one thing to realize is this is a difficult topic and it's a lot of people don't want to deal with anti-doping in different sports federations.
00:58:18
Speaker
They want it outsourced so they don't have to deal with it.
00:58:21
Speaker
And it's a hard thing, a hard topic to discuss.
00:58:24
Speaker
And so I think to explain to all those people the importance of understanding why they need to be more engaged perhaps is important too.
00:58:34
Speaker
So when we are starting from this right now, correct?
00:58:37
Speaker
We are.
00:58:38
Speaker
By speaking about it.
00:58:40
Speaker
Thank you very much, Paul, for being here with us today.
00:58:42
Speaker
It was amazing.
00:58:43
Speaker
It was super interesting and very informative, I believe.
00:58:49
Speaker
Well, thank you for having me.
00:58:49
Speaker
I really appreciate it.
00:58:52
Speaker
And this brings us to the end of our show.
00:59:02
Speaker
Thank you for listening.
00:59:03
Speaker
This show is produced by Score, a sport think tank based in Lausanne.
00:59:06
Speaker
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00:59:14
Speaker
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00:59:17
Speaker
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00:59:18
Speaker
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00:59:20
Speaker
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