I bore you, because that is very pertinent to the situation facing Floyd Landis. There are two bases for that presumption: the illegal 'corrected' form, and the contamination evidence. BOTH, are evidence that WADA procedures were not carried out, to the letter of the law.
Let's start with something very basic, and keep it simple, and crystal clear:
If I worked at any WADA Anti-Doping Organization (ADO), such as is the French Laboratoire National du Dépistage du Dopage (LNDD) in a testing/technical position, and if ever I used White-Out on a Chain-of-Evidence form, or a Testing form, or any of the official forms that are used to satisfy WADA Code criteria, I would expect to be FIRED instantly.
Why?
Because I have ethics, and I understand what happens when rules are broken: those who have broken the rules must 'pay the price'. That WADA/ADO Testing form is my only evidence of perfect work performance, at LEAST as much as it may contain evidence of scientific results which could end an Athlete's career.
If it were by my hands, then I should expect to be fired for falsifying any valid result; how different then, is the result if I submit accurate work, the recording of which isn't in conformance with the rules?
I would expect my superiors to be fired as well, if THEY altered MY work, and then submitted it as 'official'.
There is no other course, when one's life work is to render evermore impossible, the ingestion of doping substances, or utilization of doping procedures, without detection.
By acting against WADA rules in such a fashion, I would have implied that haste, inattention to details and my 'inconvenience reduction' were more important to me, than creating that which is mandatory to my work: a PERFECT evidentiary trail. That perfection is exactly what is demanded throughout WADA's CODE, and subsidiary documents such as the ISL for Labs, the IST for Testing and the WADA Chain of Evidence standards.
The weight of these documents demands the perfection that is commensurate with the well-paid, scientific post, as well as the CODE and ISL standards that, in combination and complementarity, produce them: I know that Athletes' careers are in my hands, and I would not accept less, than to have written a perfect record, as far as is humanly possible, and respecting the rules on noting of corrected data, that allows single-strike-throughs, initialed, if ever I made an error.
However, by accepting documents modified with White-Out, or containing otherwise 'unofficially' altered 'evidence', the recipient Anti-Doping Agency also becomes part of the problem that the entire process was designed to control. Any athlete who submits to testing under the WADA CODE, does so with a presumption that the CODE will be enforced as to ALL Signatories, and not only the Athletes being tested.
If a clean athlete is falsely accused by such lax, 'laisser-faire' attitudes, and acquiescence to a reduced evidentiary chain is acceptable, a signal is sent: a signal that is wrong, injust and negating the necessary good-will under which WADA had hoped to grow the positive return of clean competition.
As I first mentioned, in regarding this problem as I did the Moot Court case in 1995, it follows a similar track: upon receipt of a Chain of Evidence document with WhiteOut as an illegal correction, the USADA should have thrown out the case. Upon finding out that the Sample was CONTAMINATED, USADA Should have thrown out the case.
That Floyd is still facing this case, with a chance of being being 'convicted' against illegal evidence and illegal tests, should be the only travesty that is under dispute.
COURAGE
ç*”*”*””*ç”*”* ZENmud ”*””*ç*”*”*””*ç”
No comments:
Post a Comment