WBRS Sports Blog

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Now That's What I Call A Doping Story

Jeff Adams is one of Canada’s most storied wheelchair athletes. He’s won six world titles and competed in four Paralympics. Unfortunately for Adams, this week he was suspended two years for testing positive for cocaine.

So how did it happen? Well, according to Adams it wasn’t his fault.

“Adams argued unsuccessfully at a hearing that it was inadvertent doping. He claimed that an unknown woman approached him at a Toronto bar in May of 2006 and forced cocaine in his mouth.
He said that the catheter he used after the incident at the bar was the same one he used to give a urine sample a week later after a race at the Canadian wheelchair marathon championships in Ottawa. Adams said that contaminated catheter caused his positive test for a cocaine metabolite.”

I have to say, between Floyd Landis’ Jack Daniel’s night, Barry Bonds’ flaxseed oil, and Justin Gatlin’s vengeful masseuse, Adams’ “Cocaine Assailant” is the best drug test I’ve ever heard (whether it’s true or not.) If it is true it really makes you wonder what kind of person would forcibly put cocaine into the mouth of of person in a wheelchair. Even Marcus Vick would say that crosses the line.

// posted by Easy @ 1:07 AM

6 Comments:

At 6/14/2007 2:33 AM , Mini Me said...: Easy that is hilarious. Right the girl forced you to take it...I believe Kobe that he didnt rape her more than I believe you. Nice try buddy.
At 6/14/2007 11:47 AM , Anonymous said...: I understand the reaction that people are having to the story that is spinning out of control in the media, and I’d like to give a bit of a different perspective, and hope that you all at least consider it.

The accounting of the situation that I provided to the doping authorities was never given to them in the spirit of trying to avoid any responsibility. It was entirely offered to explain the presence of the substance in my body, and please believe me that if I had invented the story it would have been entirely more plausible. We knew going in that the story was unbelievable, but it’s what happened, and changing it or altering it to make it more digestible was never something that we considered.

Telling them the truth about what happened was the worst strategic mistake that I could have made, but to be anything less than upfront and honest with them was not an option for me. Had I denied ever ingesting the substance, and just claimed departures from the rules, I would have had a better chance of getting off on a technicality. Alternatively I could have claimed that someone who used cocaine left a catheter in my room and I used it instead of my own - there are about a million other stories that I could have invented that would have served me better in this case.

The most frustrating thing is that the system sets athletes up for this - the messaging has been diligent and unrelenting that athletes are always guilty, and always lie.

To put this in context, women get constant warnings from law enforcement to not leave their drinks unattended - we don’t call bullshit on them when date rapes happen. These kinds of things happen regularily, but when they happen to athletes, we’re never believed. The doping authorites have turned this into a “bizarre story”, but it’s really not.

The story boils down to this: I was in a bar, sitting next to a woman who was on cocaine - I had been talking to her, and at some point, I stopped being interested in doing that. I told her that I was really tired, and didn’t want to talk to her any more. She got pretty upset about that, and in her head, I think she thought that she would be helping me by giving me cocaine (I would no longer be tired). In the drug culture, people share cocaine all the time, and taking cocaine orally is quite common in public (I’ve learned), because all that needs to happen is for the substance to get to a mucous membrane, and taking it orally is a much less obvious way to do it. She turned to me, and put her hands up near my face - I had no idea what she was going to do, and she had been quite “touchy feely” up to that point, so I really didn’t see it coming. She put her fingers in my mouth, and that’s how it happened.

There were two witnesses - a woman who works for the Crown Attorney of Ontario, and the photo editor for a major Canadian magazine - they are credible witnesses who are not my friends, and their testimony was unimpeached.

The tests actually prove that the substance was not in my system at the time of the test, and indicate contamination as the likely cause. They found less than 3 ng - as an aside, even an incarcerated federal inmate in the Corrections system needs to have 300ng to test positive.

The Arbitrator found as fact that:
My testimony was “unshaken” through cross-examination.

The scientific evidence was unequivocal that the substance was not in my system at the time of the test.

This is not a case of cheating.

This is not a case of attempted performance enhancing.

The substance WAS NOT in my system at the time of the test.

From the decision:

Para. 118: “The scientific evidence is unequivocal that cocaine ingested more than six days before the sample was taken could not have remained in the Athlete’s system to be present in the urine sample. Therefore the AAF must either be as a result of the use of the Vatikan Catheter or an ingestion of cocaine later than 21 May 2006”.

Para. 116: “I must conclude that the credibility as to what is being said by the Athlete remains unshaken through cross-examination”. (This includes testimony that I had not ingested cocaine at any other time in my life)

Para. 119: “The Athlete’s evidence if accepted would mean that the Prohibited Substance was not present in his bodily fluids during the Competition…”
The Arbitrator contradicts himself in these paragraphs, in order to find that the Charter does not apply:

Para. 145: “Therefore, where fair and equitable, the Doping Tribunal may consider the Charter or any other relevant legislation, including human rights legislation in rendering its decision. It is not relevant whether the Doping Tribunal has the authority f the provincial or federal government to apply the law, as this power is being recognized in the context of a private arbitration proceeding by the rules governing its procedures.”

Para. 164: “…arbitrators appointed under the SDRCC are not “courts of competent jurisdiction” and as such, I have no jurisdiction to grant the s. 24 remedy being sought by the Athlete.
How does the Tribunal have the ability to consider the Charter, but no jurisdiction to grant a s. 24 remedy?
This is where the Human Rights Code issue comes into play:

Para 166: “Annex 6B of the CADP Rules is intended to ensure that disabled athletes have no greater burden for securing the integrity of doping control test results than other athletes and is consistent with the human rights legislation of Ontario. Athletes who use a catheter have a choice to use their own or request one from the DCO. In choosing to use their own catheter they take on responsibilities that those who choose to rely upon the DCO do not.”
This is absolutely and patently untrue, and the Arbitrator knows it. The CCES was crystal clear that it does not provide catheters to athletes, nor does it intend to do so in the future. The DCO does not carry catheters, and when they are asked to provide them, the message is that they DO NOT DO SO. The athletes are not given a choice, because if they ask for a catheter, they are told that the cces does not provide them.

Athletes who catheterize HAVE NO CHOICE but to provide their own. The CCES and the Arbitrator know this - the evidence presented at the hearing was uncontroverted in this regard.

The CCES knows that they must offer to provide catheters to be in compliance with the Ontario Human Rights Code, and they know that they do not offer to provide catheter.

I would turn your request around on them. The CCES should also come clean if they know they are violating human rights legislation. They know that the don’t offer catheters, and they know that the Arbitrator made an error. It takes a big organization to admit that they made a mistake, but they are the Can. Center for ETHICS in Sport after all.

This is an enormous issue that everyone seems to be missing.

The CCES has an entire annex (6B) to the CADP that they are ignoring. They have a duty to provide a contamination free testing protocol to ALL athletes, and they are shirking their responsibilities to atheltes with a disability. Had I been provided with a sterile catheter, we would not be here today. The substance was not in my body during the competition. It was in my catheter.

To convict me, the cces had to violate the principles of the Charter, and they had to break their own rules. The people who uphold the rules should not be allowed to break their own rules in order to secure convictions, nor should they be allowed to not guarantee a contamination free testing protocol for athletes with disabilities.

If this was a substance that was prohibited at all times, I would be in an entirely different moral boat, but the substance is not prohibited out of competition. At the time of ingestion, regardless of whether it was intentional or not, I did not violate any of the WADA rules.

The WADA code says:

“An athlete’s out-of-competition use of a prohibited substance that is not prohibited out-of-competition would not constitute an anti-doping rule violation” (see paragraph 111 of Decision, WADA code 2.2, comment).

Again, the most important point is that the substance was not in my system during the competition - it was in my catheter.

If I was guilty, I would cop to it. I’m not guilty of anything except using a contaminated piece of equipment.

If people think that based on this, that the punishment fits the crime, please tell me.
At 6/15/2007 1:23 PM , Anonymous said...: I must say he makes a good point. If you were going to make something up a smart guy like that could do much better. As the adage goes fact is stranger than fiction.

The part I don't get is if the drug was proven to not be in his system at the time of competition and if there isn't and probably shouldn't be a rule imposed by a sports governing body about non sporting uses than where is the sports related foul.

Also, the part that makes you wonder is why an international sporting hero who would clearly know what would help and what wouldn't would voluntarily take a drug that would hurt not help his chances at competition (and as I understand it, it wasn't even in his system it was in the catheter bag- and so not in his system at the time of the race).

Probably best to never pass judment on others but I would definetly hold off on this one until the appeals are finished.
At 6/18/2007 9:41 AM , Anonymous said...: Yeah, yeah, what those 2 other anonymous guys said.
At 6/18/2007 9:42 AM , Anonymous said...: That happened to me too.
At 6/18/2007 9:43 AM , Anonymous said...: Was that woman wearing jeans? Because I think I know who she is.