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WADA's whereabouts clause continues to polarize BCC! members. Several posts have now been written on the topic which you can see here. All manner of insults have been thrown, from calling Agassi a dopehead to unnecessarily insulting WADA by calling it Canadian (sorry if I misquoted anyone, but I am not willing to stand down either :P). This furious blogger wishes to ask why some stupid events vaguely related to tennis are brought up and others directly related to a ban are not.
On a quite serious note, let me first clarify that the debate isn't about whether WADA should monitor cricketers, its about their methodology. It isn't about compromising the security of the cricketers which imo is a lame @$$ excuse to try and build a case that essentially says "look we might seriously be shooting ads, or dancing at the selector's daughter's wedding, you can't expect us to keep remembering that this might be different from some schedule we sent you months earlier." The crux of the issue lies in being banned for not being where you said you were going to be months earlier for a three month time frame. If the WADA officials show up three times and don't find you at the contractually agreed location, BOOM, you're banned! You could of course inform them on every single day your schedule changes, maybe even hire someone full time to do that. But is this really the most efficient way to keep a check on potential drug cheats, for all parties concerned?
Now on to the delightful (for my argument, not the unfortunate victim) case study. Belgium's Yanina Wickmayer and Xavier Malisse have been banned by the Flemish Doping Tribunal for missing the tests as per the whereabouts clause. So, besides losing out on a year's worth of professional earnings and potential sponsorship deals, a promising US Open semi finalist ranked 18th in the world will probably be called (quite irresponsibly) a dopehead now, either deliberately or out of ignorance, because she has been banned based on the procedural rules prescribed by the world's anti doping agency. She says the suspension essentially means the end of her career, and that she might not be able to bear the costs to fight the ruling.
But is she really a drug cheat? Why is an agency which is supposed to test whether someone has has taken drugs, banning people for their poor organization/discipline skills? I mean what is their jurisdiction in this area? Its like me asking my employees to sign a deal saying I'm afraid that they might sell company secrets to a rival so they need to give me their schedule, and if I find out they're not at their homes for three Saturday nights in a row as promised on their schedule (not even working hours), BOOM, you're BANNED mofo! Now add to that one of my newsletters call them a snitch/rat for "potentially" selling secrets when all they were probably doing was taking it easy with friends.
Players, including the compatriot and US Open Champion Kim Clijsters have slammed the harsh bans. Well too bad! Read the fine print, drug cheat supporter. Ooooh, whats that, is that your friend's signature. Well, maybe that silly 20 year old girl should have hired lawyers to look at the contract she signed with the WTA. Maybe she should have realized that since she can't win this fight she should have quit tennis and taken up speed walking (OH NOEZ, another WADA controlled event) ok make that the youngest woman's tennis coach available. Maybe she could have hired a secretary/agent to travel with her and immediately inform WADA that she might have stepped out for a couple of hours to attend a last minute scheduled charity event, so please hold off for a couple of hours. Maybe she could have cut costs and used her phone to login into to WADA's site every 30 minutes and make corrections, I mean its not like a professional athelete should have to ever think about other things.
What it comes down to, is people say "oh they're professionals, they know this, these are the rules laid out and they've got to stick to them, otherwise well, too bad." The trouble is the rules make no sense. And when the laws make no sense you're usually able to debate them and get them to change to everybody's benefit. But if stupid sporting bodies agree to blanket retarded laws by an organization which prefers to dictate illogical rules instead of spending research to develop more efficient methodology, then quite simply you lose either way by continuing to be in that sport. Which is why as Mukul Kesevan said in this article, we should be thanking the BCCI and the players who choose to take a stand because their governing body has the clout to. And if you're still one of those people who think the players have imaginary fears, why don't you go have a chat with Yanina and ask her what scares her the most today?
Showing posts with label drug testing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drug testing. Show all posts
Dopehead! Wada wada wada....
wada: you are guilty till proven innocent...
seems to be the mantra today...
gone are the days when it was better to free a hundred guilty men...than to convict an innocent one...
today wada believes in the opposite...treating all players like suspects...
...and no sir...if majority appears to toe to the line (tho unwillingly as has been reported...) that does not make their diktat right...
these days sportsmen...specially cricketers are on the road for most of the time, they rightly deserve a break...you have no business to encroach on their right to privacy...specially in a rare off-season...they don't deserve to be treated like suspects...just coz they happen to play sport they love...
if you want to enforce the code and eliminate the possibility of doping from the game how about harsher punishment...?
how come players like asif after being tested positive not once but twice still find a way to the probables of champions trophy...while he should have been handed a ban for life...!
aren't you making a statement that it's ok to do drugs...?
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