Olympic Track and Field mens gold medalist tests positive!!!!!

ecoli

Six athletes tested positive in retest for CERA two of which were confirmed to be medalists one gold
It was later revealed that the 1500m gold medalist Ramzi was one of these medalists along with a cyclist.
Great to see these cheats no getting away with it. shame to see the distance races of the what was a great Olympics being tainted

thirtyfoot

ecoli wrote: »

Six athletes tested positive in retest for CERA two of which were confirmed to be medalists one gold
It was later revealed that the 1500m gold medalist Ramzi was one of these medalists along with a cyclist.
Great to see these cheats no getting away with it. shame to see the distance races of the what was a great Olympics being tainted

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympic_games/8024828.stm

Never liked him or any of them that do the switch to the Gulf countries for money. We have an even greater reason to dislike him now.

Clown and good to see him getting caught. Only thing is he won't get a lifetime ban.

Seres

Tingle wrote: »

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympic_games/8024828.stm

Never liked him or any of them that do the switch to the Gulf countries for money. We have an even greater reason to dislike him now.

Clown and good to see him getting caught. Only thing is he won't get a lifetime ban.

lifetime ban or not none of his achievements will ever be credible again

ecoli

Seres wrote: »

lifetime ban or not none of his achievements will ever be credible again

He has always been a questionable character and many before this believed him to be a cheat so his results were closely scrutinized and as such were debated from the beginning

cfitz

Maybe we should wait til the B sample is tested...

myflipflops

cfitz wrote: »

Maybe we should wait til the B sample is tested...

A very fair point, impartiality towrds individuals until full proof i guess.

If the B sample is confirmed then this is both a massive blow to the credibility of the sport and a massive step forward in beating the cheats.

It really is time that we went VERY right wing on the issue fo drugs. I'm taking about banning whole nations from competitions, immediate lifetime bans for certain infractions, contracts where athletes must pay back every penny earned in a career if caught. Hell, if this was business, these guys would be banged up for defrauding companies, sponsors, meet directors and other competitors.

End Rant/

emerald007

cfitz wrote: »

Maybe we should wait til the B sample is tested...

I don't think. Its not like its a natural hormone that the athlete could say was higher for the A sample, and should be balanced by a test of the B sample. The guy had CERA in his system which doesn't happen by accident. These drug cheats have too many excuses to hide behind.

Irishathlete_1

Both samples have tested positive. Ramzi's group are notorious for being dopers. Khalid Boulhami has coached 5 other dopers to date, <snip>

Mod note: Doping hearsay is not allowed and will result in bans.

Paddy, you rant show passion which is great, but would you ban Ireland from International competition on the back of Lombard/Hendrekin? I think the only way to deal with them is to financially penalise them. They dope to win medals and earn more money, so the logical step is to fine them. They earn $50k for gold at a world champs, so maybe their fines should be double whatever medals they have won, so in Ramzi's case, 2 WC Gold, Olympic Gold and WC silver. That would mean he would have to pay in excess of $500k back. Also, I think the money should go into a pot to help build a better testing system or develop the sport at a more grass roots level.

As an aside, I know I've been away for a while, but work has had me traveling the world since January and sadly contributing here has been down my list of priorities!

Irishathlete_1

Oh, the other 2 track athletes are the Greek race walker, which became public a few weeks back, and a Croation 800m runner

Rineanna

Irishathlete_1 wrote: »

Paddy, you rant show passion which is great, but would you ban Ireland from International competition on the back of Lombard/Hendrekin?

+1. There are countries who have a notorious drugs record and could be targeted by the IAAF/WADA, but to ban the innocent athletes from those countries seems too harsh. I'm sure they've given blood, sweat and tears to get to Olympic/World/European level, unlike some of their fellow country men/women, so while I think draconian measures are needed to deal with the issue, banning a whole country just can't be the optimum answer. Then again, I don't know what is.

And, as Irishathlete says, we don't exactly have a squeaky clean record ourselves, and the IAAF would have a hard time justifying banning Bahrain (in the Ramzi case), Russia (in the case of Soboleva, Lysenko, the walkers, the list is endless...), but not banning other countries who've had guilty athletes.

You could argue that countries without adequate drug testing procedures to be banned if there is persistent doping cases amongst their athletes.

I think the only way to deal with them is to financially penalise them. They dope to win medals and earn more money, so the logical step is to fine them. They earn $50k for gold at a world champs, so maybe their fines should be double whatever medals they have won, so in Ramzi's case, 2 WC Gold, Olympic Gold and WC silver. That would mean he would have to pay in excess of $500k back. Also, I think the money should go into a pot to help build a better testing system or develop the sport at a more grass roots level.

It's a good solution, especially using the money for the stated purposes, but I fear it would be futile, given Ramzi won't be allowed into any meets where the big bucks are made, and the meets he is allowed into won't pay enough to refund the IAAF. Look at the trouble Chambers is having paying back his prize money, and he didn't win half the amount Ramzi has.

eltuerto

Just on the issue of athletes switching countries, I just think this has got out of hand. For example the 1st girl in the Euro indoors 3k women who beat Mary Cullen was supposedly a Turk but was instead an Algerian (or was it Moroccian) that does not even reside in Turkey.

Then there are numerous Kenyans now running for Qatar and Saudi. Ok there are exceptions. Wilson Kipketar married a Danish girl and lived in Denmark before he switched but now it seems all about money.

As for the drugs issue I am fed up with these guys discrediting our sport. Everyone on the street guessed Ramzai was a cheat as indeed we all kinda guessed about Chambers. The consolation is they are getting caught but the damage to the sport is longer lasting.

myflipflops

Irishathlete_1 wrote: »

Paddy, you rant show passion which is great, but would you ban Ireland from International competition on the back of Lombard/Hendrekin? !

Absolutely not. What we are beginning to see is a a number of nations blatantly ignoring the doping rules in place. Russia is the most obvious one but look at others - the Greek authorities quite plainly turned their back (openly encouraged) doping in the lead up the the 2004 Games, the Moroccans have an horrible record of doping distance runners & now we have Bahrain. Can anybody honestly argue that they didn;t know what Ramzi was doing when they spent so much money keeping him to compete under their flag?? This casts an enormous cloud over the credibility of Mariam Jamal too.

If you look at the Irish testing system, it is incredibly harsh on all athletes, even those well away from world class. If almost guarantees that people cheating will be caught. The authorites go out of their way to hunt the cheats down. Lombard was hounded and caught, Hendricken was hounded and caught, Michelle Smith was hounded and caught. We're so tough, we catch athletes like Gareth Turnbull who were guilty of nothing more than a night out on the town!!

The sport has to crack down on the situation where national authorites are in charge of the out-of-competition testing when so many of them clearly don't test at all. Ramzi is such a great case in point. Here is a guy who ran no major races in the lead up to Beijing. He ran one very low key 5k in Eastern Europe in order to achive the qualifying standard for that so that he had a choice of events on Beijing. He then came out and blew away the field in the Olympic 1500. How many times was he tested during the year?? I would suggest none when there was any chance of catching him. He simply hid away in Morrocco or Bahrain and prepared in his prefered (illegal) manner.

The drug cheats are ahead of the testers and this will remain the status quo. This has been the case for too long too ignore. WADA need to ralise that the drug situation should be tackled on two fronts - testing and the devlopment of tests is one but the implementation of measures to discourage cheating is the first place is another. National federations won't allow cheating amongst their ranks if they are going to be penalised incredibly harshly for it themselves. Athletes will be less likely to cheat for the financial gain if they know that one positive test will result in them having to pay back all the money they won in the first place. Immediate life time bans will further dissuade them for fairly obvious reasons.

MrCreosote

Really feel sorry for the guy in 4th who will now be 3rd.
Getting a bronze medal delivered by some courier (sign here...and here...thank you) 8 months later- not quite the same as standing on the podium with 80000 people cheering.

Irishathlete_1

pwhite587 wrote: »

Absolutely not. What we are beginning to see is a a number of nations blatantly ignoring the doping rules in place. Russia is the most obvious one but look at others - the Greek authorities quite plainly turned their back (openly encouraged) doping in the lead up the the 2004 Games, the Moroccans have an horrible record of doping distance runners & now we have Bahrain. Can anybody honestly argue that they didn;t know what Ramzi was doing when they spent so much money keeping him to compete under their flag?? This casts an enormous cloud over the credibility of Mariam Jamal too.

If you look at the Irish testing system, it is incredibly harsh on all athletes, even those well away from world class. If almost guarantees that people cheating will be caught. The authorites go out of their way to hunt the cheats down. Lombard was hounded and caught, Hendricken was hounded and caught, Michelle Smith was hounded and caught. We're so tough, we catch athletes like Gareth Turnbull who were guilty of nothing more than a night out on the town!!

The sport has to crack down on the situation where national authorites are in charge of the out-of-competition testing when so many of them clearly don't test at all. Ramzi is such a great case in point. Here is a guy who ran no major races in the lead up to Beijing. He ran one very low key 5k in Eastern Europe in order to achive the qualifying standard for that so that he had a choice of events on Beijing. He then came out and blew away the field in the Olympic 1500. How many times was he tested during the year?? I would suggest none when there was any chance of catching him. He simply hid away in Morrocco or Bahrain and prepared in his prefered (illegal) manner.

The drug cheats are ahead of the testers and this will remain the status quo. This has been the case for too long too ignore. WADA need to ralise that the drug situation should be tackled on two fronts - testing and the devlopment of tests is one but the implementation of measures to discourage cheating is the first place is another. National federations won't allow cheating amongst their ranks if they are going to be penalised incredibly harshly for it themselves. Athletes will be less likely to cheat for the financial gain if they know that one positive test will result in them having to pay back all the money they won in the first place. Immediate life time bans will further dissuade them for fairly obvious reasons.

I really don't see how banning federations is a way to combat drug use. It is very very rare that state sponsored doping still exists. When you look at the majority of dopers in the last 10 years, the doping has been done through individual coaches, agents and in some case the athletes themselves.

The yanks are arguably the biggest doping nation over the last 12-15 years, would you say that USATF are responsible for their doping problem? Jones, Montgomery, Gatlin et al were all doped via their coach and his links to an independent lab. Banning USATF would be a massive hinderance to the sports development in my opinion.

I agree with you that there are certain nations where there is an extensive problem. As an example, there are reports that in 05/06 when IAAF testers entered Bulgaria to test the crop of Bulgarian athletes who had showed up over night, that the coaches/athlete were tipped off by officials at Sofia airport. Now these reports are unsubstantiated, but if they are true, then there is a case there to suspend the nation for a period. I don't see this as an overall solution though.

The testing is catching up at a rapid rate, and the prison sentences imposed in the BALCO case were definitely a step in the right direction. Similar powers are now being put in place in France, Spain and other nations. This will be a big step forward in the fight against PED's.

thirtyfoot

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/2376129/Willis-Snr-not-surprised-at-drugs-result

Some comment from Nick Willis' father.

cfitz

Irishathlete_1 wrote: »

Both samples have tested positive. Ramzi's group are notorious for being dopers. Khalid Boulhami has coached 5 other dopers to date, <snip>

Apologies, I read that the B sample was to be tested in June. Any chance you could point me to a link that says it has been tested? Thanks.

Irishathlete_1

I haven't seen it in any press reports. It is from a contact at the IAAF that has told me both samples have been tested

cfitz

Irishathlete_1 wrote: »

I haven't seen it in any press reports. It is from a contact at the IAAF that has told me both samples have been tested

Well it seems to be in a lot of press reports that it hasn't happened yet. Do you think someone in WADA did a sneaky test of the B sample? Sounds unlikely/worrying!

Running Bing

I dont understand why positive tests dont lead to an automatic lifetime ban.


I think quite aside from the morality of it surely its fair to assume that the athlete attained a higher level of fitness than would've been possible without the drugs.....does'nt this have ramifications for the whole of the athletes career?

I would not like the idea of lining up alongside an athlete who I knew had doped in the past even if I was 100% certain he was clean at the time of the race.


Lifetime ban imo...its the only way to curb the problem.

thirtyfoot

Running Bing wrote: »

its fair to assume that the athlete attained a higher level of fitness than would've been possible without the drugs.....does'nt this have ramifications for the whole of the athletes career?

Thats a good point. The accumulation of hard training which may have been helped by being on PED can be beneficial for years ahead. It is recognised that as an athlete gets older the type of training required changes and can focus on more quality if they have built up a good accumulation of training in the preceding years.

Enduro

Running Bing wrote: »

I dont understand why positive tests dont lead to an automatic lifetime ban.


I think quite aside from the morality of it surely its fair to assume that the athlete attained a higher level of fitness than would've been possible without the drugs.....does'nt this have ramifications for the whole of the athletes career?

I would not like the idea of lining up alongside an athlete who I knew had doped in the past even if I was 100% certain he was clean at the time of the race.


Lifetime ban imo...its the only way to curb the problem.

Couldn't agree more. IMHO the current system makes it worth the risk.

hunnymonster

I'm another person in favour of the lifetime ban but I don't know the ins and outs of how these things work so it's a gut feeling rather than a thought out legal position.

shels4ever

hunnymonster wrote: »

I'm another person in favour of the lifetime ban but I don't know the ins and outs of how these things work so it's a gut feeling rather than a thought out legal position.

Was there not some case a few years back in this regards. Something to do with a persons right to earn a living ? and a lifetime ban would prevent this..

I'd be all for a life time ban too..

ZiggyStardust

I think this was with regards to Ben Johnson. When he was given his lifetime ban for second offence, he appealed on the grounds of not being able to work, and blamed the Canadian federation for not explaining the terms of his lifetime ban.
Not sure of the full details, but remember thinking was a bit much at the time.
Agree too fro life bans.

bazman

For drugs that are performance enhancing I definitely agree that there should be a lifetime ban & all championship/olympic medals from their full career should be taken off them.

That said I would also be of the opinion that there should be some drug classification system with different penalties attached - not sure I'd like to see someone get a life time ban for getting bad medical advice and taking something to solve an injury or condition or indeed for some recrecational drugs ...

PainIsTemporary

bazman wrote: »

That said I would also be of the opinion that there should be some drug classification system with different penalties attached - not sure I'd like to see someone get a life time ban for getting bad medical advice and taking something to solve an injury

Fair point particularly with Athlete Whereabouts Policy that is now in place.

Out of curiousity have GAA players been signed up to Athlete Whereabouts Policy? Know its a different topic but don't Intercounty players get an Irish Sports Council grants? If they do shouldn't they be subjected to it the same as athletes of other disciplines? Asking out of curiousity. Posted this question on GAA forum not long ago and didn't get a response [when issue of Kerry footballer failing drugs test because of using an asthma inhaler]

Stupid_Private

while we're asking doping questions.

I recently got asked by an American if Irish Athletes based abroad are subjected to random tests.. Cullen, Fagan, et al. I'd no idea if they were or not. Apparently there are a lot of countries that don't have a system in place to test them. I was quite surprised by that - Do the AAI have a system set up to test Irish athletes living abroad?

myflipflops

MrCreosote wrote: »

Really feel sorry for the guy in 4th who will now be 3rd.
Getting a bronze medal delivered by some courier (sign here...and here...thank you) 8 months later- not quite the same as standing on the podium with 80000 people cheering.

This was Mehdi Baala - zero sympathy from me.

macshay

Irish athletes can be and are tested anywhere in the world, in fact through the whereabouts system most are now tested before they leave the country for spells of warm weather training etc. ISCs anti - doping programme is probably one of the most proactive in world sport.

PainIsTemporary

pwhite587 wrote: »

This was Mehdi Baala - zero sympathy from me.

Why's that then?