{"id":314,"date":"2010-04-27T07:33:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-27T14:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=314"},"modified":"2010-04-27T07:33:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-27T14:33:00","slug":"anti-doping-program-needs-transparency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=314","title":{"rendered":"Anti Doping Program Needs Transparency"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once again we have had a doping issue arise in the sport of track and field. And I agree with those who say<\/a> that doping is a major PR problem for the sport. I disagree, however, as to why doping is such a PR nightmare. While most would contend that it is the announcements of the positive tests that is the problem, I believe that the real problem is that positive tests are the ONLY thing we hear about when it comes to doping!<\/p>\n

The story that ISN\u2019T told is that, to my knowledge, we test our athletes more than any other sport in the world! We have in competition testing, out of competition testing, random testing, and we\u2019ve even begun a pilot blood testing program here in the US (Project Believe). The only thing that we tell anyone, however, is who we are suspending because of a positive test!<\/p>\n

Now from a PR standpoint that would be like an automaker only making public announcements when they have a recall issue! Fortunately for them they provide information on customer loyalty, performance reviews, safety reports and other information on just how good their products are. Unfortunately for track and field, when it comes to drug testing, we only let people know when someone has been caught breaking the rules! When all the public hears is that people are getting busted \u201ccheating\u201d they develop the attitude that the sport is filled with cheats!<\/p>\n

Speaking with people familiar with the sport, and reading what writers who cover the sport have to say it would appear that that is the impression that just about everyone is getting \u2013 that the sport is filled with cheats. Not the image that track and field WANTS to have \u2013 but it is the one that we are presenting. Because that\u2019s the only information that we provide! Even watching the telecast of the Penn Relays \u2013 one of the few meets televised here in the US \u2013 the announcers just had to do a segment highlighting Lashawn\u2019s positive test. So that anyone watching track and field on TV for the first time is left with the impression that the few reports they\u2019ve read in the news about track and field are true \u2013 track people cheat!<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why it\u2019s time for track and field to be open and transparent about our anti doping programs. I \u201chear\u201d that we test a lot \u2013 but I have no idea how many tests we conduct. I have no idea who\u2019s been tested or how many times they\u2019ve been clean. I don\u2019t know if the US is tested the most or proportionate to population or to our competition. I have no idea how many tests were conducted last year in Europe, Asia, Africa or the Caribbean. All I know is when a press release comes out telling me \u201cofficially\u201d who is being banned! And I say \u201cofficially\u201d because secrecy breeds rumor and innuendo \u2013 and this sport is full of rumor and innuendo about who\u2019s tested positive and who\u2019s being covered up. <\/p>\n

All of the above is why track and field needs to create a website, or sections on existing sites like USADA, WADA, et al, that provides information on the results of our anti doping program \u2013 and not just a few random numbers. If we are the most tested sport, then let\u2019s tell people. If our top athletes are being tested regularly, then let\u2019s tell people. If we\u2019re testing our stars as much as we say we are and they are repeatedly coming up clean then THAT is GOOD NEWS! Going back to the auto industry those would all be very good consumer reports! <\/p>\n

Withholding that information and only providing info on who tests positive just gives the impression that doping is a NEGATIVE issue in the sport \u2013 that our athletes are dirty not clean. When the reality is that if only a small percentage of our tests come up positive, then the rare \u201cdirty\u201d athlete is not that bad at all! It would also get rid of the veil of secrecy that testing has in this sport. The feeling that something is always being \u201chidden\u201d \u2013 because we know from the past that things HAVE been hidden. That the sport only releases the information that it \u201cwants\u201d to release. Sort of how the public feels about government \u2013 that there is some hidden agenda and they only tell us what they want us to know and that Roswell, Area 51, and the truth about the assassination of Kennedy is still out there but being kept from us! When an athlete like Merritt can have THREE positive tests and not even know then we really have a problem \u2013 because it seems the information is being withheld from EVERYONE including the athletes themselves.<\/p>\n

I understand that there are privacy issues. Those issues can easily be overcome by having athletes sign waivers \u2013 and I would think that anyone clean would have no problem with such a waiver. We have the ability for test results to be up online within days of the tests being conducted. Since we won\u2019t know who\u2019s been tested until the results are \u201cup\u201d if there are pending positives they can simply be held pending testing of the \u201cB\u201d sample and notification of the appropriate individuals \u2013 but those are the only results that should be withheld \u2013 with the final results made available following the conclusion of proper notification procedures. <\/p>\n

Transparency would also create greater accountability across the board. We would know who is conducting a fair amount of tests and who isn\u2019t. We would know who is being over tested and potentially targeted and who isn\u2019t being tested enough. We could determine if \u201crandom\u201d is truly random and if enough out of competition testing is being conducted. We would be able to see where there are holes in the system and shore them up. And we could finally get rid of the whispers and innuendo that run rampant in this sport.<\/p>\n

Questions about a region, look it up. Questions about an individual, look him\/her up. The testing history of Usain Bolt, Tyson Gay, Carmelita Jeter, Allyson Felix, Asafa Powell and Shelly Ann Fraser, et al would be there to simply look up, just as the results of their races are. In competition, out of competition, random, when, where, and what. As they said in Dragnet, \u201cjust the facts\u201d.<\/p>\n

If testing data was as available as competition data all the whispers, speculation, innuendo and rumors would go away. Because you control the conversation by being open with the information. In turn we would also get rid of the notion that track and field is a dirty sport. After all we say that we are conducting an\u201canti doping\u201d program through WADA and the various local anti doping agencies. So let\u2019s tell everyone how GOOD our anti doping efforts are performing. Anti doping should be a positive PR talking point, not a negative one. We should be highlighting our successes not our failures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once again we have had a doping issue arise in the sport of track and field. And I agree with those who say that doping is a major PR problem for the sport. I disagree, however, as to why doping is such a PR nightmare. While most would contend that it is the announcements of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa3DCY-54","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}