22 minutes ago, daisycutter said:

well bub, there is technically (or legally if you like) wrong and there is wrong wrong 

i have little doubt, in the grunter's case, that she was using this little known drug, only made in the well know medical centre of latvia, and not available for medical use in most of the world, to gain a performance enhancement for 10 years

the fact she was not in any breach technically till 2016 was merely a fortuitous circumstance for her

Screamer I think covers it better dc

39 minutes ago, ManDee said:

Beeb, I thought all drugs were banned until they were approved.

They are banned under S0 if they have not been approved for therapeutic use anywhere in the world. This drug had been approved in various eastern block countries so was not covered by S0. Why the media keep saying it had not been approved by the US FDA is beyond me. It is an irrelevance as far as it being banned by WADA (as it had been approved elsewhere) and only holds a tiny relevance as she lived the US, again though that is a legal matter for the FDA to worry about not WADA. Just more sensationalist clap trap from a media who don't bother to really understand the code or what is going on, AGAIN!

16 minutes ago, beelzebub said:

Only if they fell under SO. These drugs were approved for human use. As to whether they fell under the SO  I confess I dont know. I suspect they didnt.

It is not approved for human consumption in the USA where she lives.

To say your family doctor prescribes it for you is interesting.

I doubt any doctor in the USA would be prescribing a drug that is not approved in that country but perhaps her family doctor lives in Latvia.

NO she is just another drug cheat who has been caught out.

The more money involved the more cheating.

2 hours ago, jnrmac said:

I have trouble with the fact it was legal up until Dec 31 and the Australian Open in January its not legal. I have read all of the arguments and explanations that I could but this still seems to me to be a bit harsh. Yes you have to draw the line and have a cut off date and the fact she was warned multiple times is damning.

Is it possible there were residual amounts in her system? 

Why is it a bit harsh?  It was banned this year and she says she kept taking it. 

Isnt the default for any drug or supplement that it is always illegal if not approved for human consumption, and if approved for human use then banned if specified as such.

So if we found out that a "certain"Essendon footballer took a PED for 10 years (that wasn't banned at the time) we'd be ok with that? 

I know I wouldn't be ... we're talking about a PED that gives a definite advantage. 

And if people reckon that WADA have got a chance of catching up with the drug cheats, they are dreaming. 

A underfunded WADA is always going to be many years behind.

That is the brutal reality. 

29 minutes ago, old dee said:

It is not approved for human consumption in the USA where she lives.

To say your family doctor prescribes it for you is interesting.

I doubt any doctor in the USA would be prescribing a drug that is not approved in that country but perhaps her family doctor lives in Latvia.

NO she is just another drug cheat who has been caught out.

The more money involved the more cheating.

Ostensibly yes to all that however as Chris highlights it wasn't on WADA hit list. That what WADA work to.

I'm just stating the actuality here. 

Unlike Essendon who went beyond she was technically within....right until WADA shut the gate. Her stupidity was to keep going, especially after multiple warnings.

Ban her by all means. Yes she is a cheat. 

A hard line with zero tolerance is the only way to fight the scourge of PED use in sports. 

And WADA needs 30-40 times the funding with all the sporting bodies buying in completely.

 

26 minutes ago, Macca said:

27 minutes ago, Macca said:

A hard line with zero tolerance is the only way to fight the scourge of PED use in sports. 

And WADA needs 30-40 times the funding with all the sporting bodies buying in completely.

We won't see that so it will just be more of the same. 

A hard line with zero tolerance is the only way to fight the scourge of PED use in sports. 

And WADA needs 30-40 times the funding with all the sporting bodies buying in completely.

We won't see that so it will just be more of the same. 

Sadly Macca I think you are on the money100%

12 minutes ago, old dee said:

Sadly Macca I think you are on the money100%

We could have gone a long way towards having clean sport in this country but that takes real leadership. 

The AFL passed up on that opportunity and chose to look the other way. 

If WADA (or whoever) had been able to charge her use over the last 10 years they would have.  They must have decided the rules do not allow the to do it.

An important thing is whether she declared it as a medication whenever she was tested by drug testers.  Athletes are required to disclose everything.  If she thought it to be legal she would have, no?  If she has not she may be in real strife ala the 34 EFC players who chose to not disclose/conceal what was being taken to routine drug testers.

I just heard on SEN that her lawyers are going to try to get her off on a 'technicality' - sound familiar  The technicality is 'used for therapeutic reasons' and they will apply for a retrospective exemption.  I assume they did not apply for one over the 10 years as the substance was not banned. 

So it comes back to whether it was disclosed at the time of testing.

Looks like another round of appeals on the horizon!  CAS will be busy!

6 minutes ago, Macca said:

We could have gone a long way towards having clean sport in this country but that takes real leadership. 

The AFL passed up on that opportunity and chose to look the other way. 

They're on the money too.

2 minutes ago, Lucifer's Hero said:

I just heard on SEN that her lawyers are going to try to get her off on a 'technicality' - sound familiar  The technicality is 'used for therapeutic reasons' and they will apply for a retrospective exemption.  I assume they did not apply for one over the 10 years as the substance was not banned.  So it comes back to whether it was disclosed at the time of testing.

Looks like another round of appeals on the horizon!  CAS will be busy!

She may get off but the horse has bolted for Maria. She will now always be considered a drug cheat.

The only ones who won't believe it are the Bruce Francises of the world.

How do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you catch a cheat and pin them down?
How do you find the word that means Maria?
A flim flam,  A too clever-by-half, And  tarnished crown !!

 

WADA simply doesn't understand individual sports.

26 minutes ago, Ted Fidge said:

She may get off but the horse has bolted for Maria. She will now always be considered a drug cheat.

The only ones who won't believe it are the Bruce Francises of the world.

True. The disappointing thing is we have so many Bruce's around the AFL community.

38 minutes ago, Ted Fidge said:

She may get off but the horse has bolted for Maria. She will now always be considered a drug cheat.

The only ones who won't believe it are the Bruce Francises of the world.

she *may* get off eventually, though i doubt it

if she does, it will probably take at least 12 months and she is on a provisional 12 month suspension on the basis of a positive drug test, so she will likely lose 2016 anyway. at the moment she is guilty until proven innocent. i sure hope she declared the drug at the time of testing as there is now a strong precedent for failure to do so.

2 hours ago, Macca said:

So if we found out that a "certain"Essendon footballer took a PED for 10 years (that wasn't banned at the time) we'd be ok with that? 

I know I wouldn't be ... we're talking about a PED that gives a definite advantage. 

And if people reckon that WADA have got a chance of catching up with the drug cheats, they are dreaming. 

A underfunded WADA is always going to be many years behind.

That is the brutal reality. 

Why wouldn't you be? If it wasn't banned it is legal and they have done nothing wrong. I fail to see the logic there at all.

3 minutes ago, Chris said:

Why wouldn't you be? If it wasn't banned it is legal and they have done nothing wrong. I fail to see the logic there at all.

You and I are on a different page 

My attitude is that a PED doesn't have to be banned to be still giving an athlete an unfair advantage. 

An infair advantage = cheating. 

If you don't agree then so be it. 

Just now, Macca said:

You and I are on a different page 

My attitude is that a PED doesn't have to be banned to be still giving an athlete an unfair advantage. 

An infair advantage = cheating. 

If you don't agree then so be it. 

We are on a very different page, if something isn't banned then it isn't unfair as it is available for everyone to use. Otherwise you could say Sandilands has an unfair advantage over big max because he has a better diet!

4 minutes ago, Chris said:

Why wouldn't you be? If it wasn't banned it is legal and they have done nothing wrong. I fail to see the logic there at all.

i would suggest that not being illegal, is not the same thing as being legal

just as in a court case not being found guilty does not always equate to innocence. the scots got this one right.

i think macca's logic is that she was always taking it for an artificial performance enhancement, was ethically guilty and also pointing out that there is often a lag between a ped becomes available/in-use and wada being in a position to ban it. epo and blood doping was a good example. cheating is cheating regardless of wada.

1 minute ago, Chris said:

We are on a very different page, if something isn't banned then it isn't unfair as it is available for everyone to use. Otherwise you could say Sandilands has an unfair advantage over big max because he has a better diet!

There's an unfair advantage which is "cheat" based and then there are just plain advantages by default.

You're mixing up the 2 ... I understand that athletes are not going to be charged with drug offences if a PED is not on a banned list but how would you feel if Hird was discovered to have taken a concoction of "non-banned" PED's in his footy career? 

She was taking it as a PED for 10 years. She's a drug cheat and will be banned accordingly. I read today she was warned five times by WADA, no sympathy from me.

5 minutes ago, Macca said:

There's an unfair advantage which is "cheat" based and then there are just plain advantages by default.

You're mixing up the 2 ... I understand that athletes are not going to be charged with drug offences if a PED is not on a banned list but how would you feel if Hird was discovered to have taken a concoction of "non-banned" PED's in his footy career? 

Honestly wouldn't bother me. Every serious athlete out there is on a concoction of various things that aren't banned and has been for a long long while, be it protein powders, to supplements, to prescription drugs. It is part of finding out what works for you to maximise your performance. Every one of the Demons players would without a shadow of a doubt be taking some series of substances, and no doubt they are different to what Collingwood players are using, or Geelong players etc etc. Every one of these could be seen as a PED .

13 minutes ago, daisycutter said:

i would suggest that not being illegal, is not the same thing as being legal

just as in a court case not being found guilty does not always equate to innocence. the scots got this one right.

i think macca's logic is that she was always taking it for an artificial performance enhancement, was ethically guilty and also pointing out that there is often a lag between a ped becomes available/in-use and wada being in a position to ban it. epo and blood doping was a good example. cheating is cheating regardless of wada.

Spot on ... by default an athlete will not be charged with drug offences if the PED's are not "officially" banned but what if they knowingly took the PED's knowing they were gaining an unfair advantage. 

It's academic anyway because it's more of a morals/ethics/integrity issue. 

3 minutes ago, Chris said:

Honestly wouldn't bother me. Every serious athlete out there is on a concoction of various things that aren't banned and has been for a long long while, be it protein powders, to supplements, to prescription drugs. It is part of finding out what works for you to maximise your performance. Every one of the Demons players would without a shadow of a doubt be taking some series of substances, and no doubt they are different to what Collingwood players are using, or Geelong players etc etc. Every one of these could be seen as a PED .

With all due respect, I disagree Chris. 

Certainly outside of this country numerous athletes in a variety of sports have used EPO, HGH and other PED's before those drugs were banned - esp in the USA.