Sat Nov 07, 2009 4:26 pm EST
After Wickmayer suspension, is it safe to say tennis is still 'clean'?
What's that old saying? Once is a mistake, twice is a coincidence, three times is a trend? If that's the case, then Yanina Wickmayer's one-year suspesnsion for thrice failing to report her whereabouts to drug testing officials is a fair and legitimate penalty.
From the Associated Press:
Wickmayer said last month she has had trouble with her password in the computerized system overseen by the World Anti-Doping Agency. She also said registered mail at her home could not be signed off on because she was travelling to WTA tournaments.
Yes, Yanina, you're the only player who travels to tournaments and can't sign for registered mail. And that password excuse sounds like something I'd tell an ex-girlfriend whose emails I haevn't returned.
Maybe she did, maybe she didn't. If it's the latter, then failing to report her whereabouts to officials three times is the height of stupidity. If she did, was she using illicit substances for recreation or to enhance performance?
The use of PEDs in tennis is almost certainly more widespread than anyone thinks. The game is thought of as "clean", but that's only because tennis has one of the worst drug testing plans in all of sports. As Bill Gifford described in a piece for Slate earlier this year:
The International Tennis Federation's testing program hasn't caught any significant drug cheats because it's practically designed that way. According to the ITF's own statistics, tennis's governing body conducted just over 2,000 drug tests last year. Even if you consider that this covers more than 1,000 ranked players, as well as wheelchair tennis players, it still sounds like a lot of testing. But look more closely, and you'll see some Jaws-size holes in the net.
Consider the timing of the tests. Nearly all of tennis's drug testing was conducted during competitions-major tournaments like the Australian Open, Roland Garros, and Wimbledon. But most doping activity occurs during training, not actual competition.
Sports like cycling and track and field-which have had far worse drug problems than tennis-figured out long ago that it's best to test athletes outside competition. But last year, tennis performed just 91 out-of-competition tests. The International Cycling Union, by contrast, did more than 2,000 such tests.
It's naive to think that the use of PEDs in tennis isn't more widespread than reported. The lax drug testing contributes to this perception, but so does the fact that use of these types of drugs wouldn't be clearly noticeable to fans and those in the tennis community.
Players won't be bulking up like football and baseball players, so the telltale signs of use, like bigger muscles, increased head size and suspicious jumps in home run totals, aren't there. Wickmayer wouldn't be looking like a member of the 1988 East German women's swim team or seeing her serve speed jump 30 mph.
It's far more likely that a blood doping drug like EPO, which is big in both cycling and track, would be in use. Some have debated this, like Stuart Miller who is the head of anti-doping for the International Tennis Federation. From a New York Times article about drug use in tennis from September:
"You normally see [EPO use] in sports where you are trying to maximize some element of physiological performance, like strength, power, stamina, speed," Miller said. Tennis combines these attributes with strategy and hand-eye coordination. "They're good at all of those things," he said. "But they're not trying to maximize those things."
The "[insert drug here] won't benefit [insert type of athlete] because [insert specious reasoning]" excuse is as old as PEDs. Remember when people thought sluggers couldn't benefit because steroids don't help hand-eye coordination? Or that pitchers shouldn't be bulky because it would ruin the pitching motion? Getting a little boost or a bit more stamina can always help. It's completely naive to presume otherwise.
Wickmayer either doped or she didn't. If it's the latter, then failing to report her whereabouts to officials three times is the height of stupidity. What's the old saying, "once
A theory put forth by Bill Gifford in that Slate piece suggests that perhaps tennis officials have lax drug testing standards because they don't want the sport to irrevocably tainted by drug speculation like cycling and track have. This isn't to suggest that there's some sort of mass conspiracy to allow players to dope, but there certainly could be a little "out of sight, out of mind" action at work.
Busted Racquet
Chris Chase
Busted Racquet is a tennis blog edited by Chris Chase. Email him, and follow him on Twitter.
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41 Comments
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we can speculate all we want about whether she used or didn't use performance enhancing drugs; however, the fact is that we'll never know for sure.
why? because they could never find her to test her because she failed to report her whereabouts 3 times. therefore, she was suspended. no real controversy here at all, just following the rules.
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she gets suspended NOT because she has tested positive but because she has failed to report her whereabouts 3 times?
what is it? a bloody camp? !
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Seems like the player's union has absolutely no backbone either. Guess a union that has millionares jetting around the world and staying in 5-star hotels just doesn't stand up for themselves when one of theirs is threatened.
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#2- Mr. Mackey sums it up. Nice one, Mike!
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Ouch, Chris! But spot on. She shouldn't have bothered mentioning about not being able to sign for registered mail. Definitely opened herself up for that one.
About the drug use. It seems like the punishment for being tested positive for finding drugs in their system which clearly inhibits an athletes performance is harsher than that of a performance enhancer. I don't understand this. I thought their main objective to have these types of bodies or organizations was to make sure one athlete does not take any drugs that would make them have an advantage over another athlete. Whatever!
I just watched Andre Agassi's interview in 60 minutes. He's either a really good actor or he's very sincere. I still don't agree with the meth use, but I certainly understand the circumstances that led up to it. The way he described his downward spiral and the problems he was going through at that stage of his career, well, it sounded like he was suffering from depression, which we all know can also lead to suicide. You all know where I'm going with this. I for one am glad he was able to clean and pick himself back up from his personal hell. I'm sure all the kids he's helped with his foundation are grateful for his recovery and can look at his story with a positive note.
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They nearly lost me with the Hingis case, which was ridiculous. But most people didn't read all about that, and still don't have a clue what that was about. Or the time Kuznetsova took cough medicine and some of the other girls said they didn't want to talk to her anymore for being "irresponsible". I hate cheating. The first time I saw Marion Jones, I thought "She's cheating". Way before suspicion. I've got real good intuition, okay? And the tennis world has gone down an archaic witchhunt game. This would not happen to a more popular "pliable" player. The first thought of naysayers out there will say I have a "conspiracy theory". As if everyone plays fair behind the scenes of world-class sports! The writer is a fool. 90 percent of the audience are gullible fools. You don't know the girl, your intuition sucks, you will beliieve what you want to believe. How do these writers get their jobs? Fire them, I'll work for less and write with more clarity and less sensationalism and still be more interesting.
Chris Chase, you are an idiot.
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They nearly lost me with the Hingis case, which was ridiculous. But most people didn't read all about that, and still don't have a clue what that was about. Or the time Kuznetsova took cough medicine and some of the other girls said they didn't want to talk to her anymore for being "irresponsible". I hate cheating. The first time I saw Marion Jones, I thought "She's cheating". Way before suspicion. I've got real good intuition, okay? And the tennis world has gone down an archaic witchhunt game. This would not happen to a more popular "pliable" player. The first thought of naysayers out there will say I have a "conspiracy theory". As if everyone plays fair behind the scenes of world-class sports! The writer is a fool. 90 percent of the audience are gullible fools. You don't know the girl, your intuition sucks, you will beliieve what you want to believe. How do these writers get their jobs? Fire them, I'll work for less and write with more clarity and less sensationalism and still be more interesting.
Chris Chase, you are an idiot.
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First of all the whereabouts-system only started at the beginning of 2009. So it's fair to assume that both players and administrators needed some time to adjust. To the rules, to the system, whatever.
Secondly, Wickmayer was ranked outside of the top 50 at the start of the year. Under all WADA and ITF rules this would not require her to use the whereabouts-system. Only the Flemish doping agency orders all pro athletes to fill out their whereabouts. Wickmayer was training in Australia at that time and was not aware of this. Talking to other players in Melbourne she heard about the requirements and contacted the Flemish doping agency. By then the damage was done. (BTW to add to the ridiculousness of it all, the rules in the French-speaking part of Belgium are different and Malisse and Wickmayer wouldn't have been required to follow the whereabouts-system)
Wickmayer has been tested for doping at least 10 times this season, none of the tests were positive.
To ban a player for a whole year when she hasn't been found positive is an extremely tough punishment. And saying things like 'Once is a mistake, twice is a coincidence, three times is a trend' without knowing the facts are below all standards, even for journalists.
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"Yes, Yanina, you're the only player who travels to tournaments and can't sign for registered mail. And that password excuse sounds like something I'd tell an ex-girlfriend whose emails I haevn't returned."
Well, the password malfunction was demonstrated in the tribunal, and the VDT (the Flemish doping authorities) conceded this. They also made it clear that she is not suspected of doping. Yanina never missed a test. She was tested numerous times in and out of competitions and was found clean.
Has the writer considered that this is the case of incompetent administration and obsession with the letter of the law, not the spirit?
First of all, the VDT decides to go by their own rule, stricter than everyone else's. WADA only requires top-50 players to report their whereabouts; the ITF restricts this to those who were top-50 at the beginning of the year. But Flanders would require all professional athletes to report, to prove that they mean business. Let's leave aside for a moment that the whereabouts rule is controversial as it goes against Belgian and European privacy laws.
They 'notify' Yanina, who is outside the top 50 at this time, by sending a letter to her home in this day and age of email. She is abroad training with her father, so no one's at home and the letter is returned to the sender. Yanina only finds out about the rule change from other Flemish players. She contacts the WTA, which isn't helpful because as far as they know, only top-50 players are required to report... She eventually googles the VDT and contacts them, and receives a password to use for their computerized reporting system. However, the password doesn't work. Yanina calls the WADA, but they can't help her either. Turns out, the VDT sent her a new password--to her home address, where she can't pick it up. The password was reset six times, and they finally got it figured out in June. Yanina has never missed a reporting since. Unfortunately, she had already missed three times by then.
Now, the rules say that failing to report three times is equivalent to missing a doping test. This is reasonable, if the system is working as intended, because otherwise the system would be exploited. But if people are having trouble reporting because everyone is adjusting to a new system even when they try to comply with the rules, should they be punished as if they were trying to hide something? There are cases of doping athletes going into hiding and failing to report their whereabouts. But Yanina, in those times that she missed reporting, was playing in tennis tournaments. The authorities, if they wanted to test her, could have tracked her down very easily. She even called the VDT when her password didn't work, which reasonable people might think equivalent to confirming her location verbally. But no, since she failed to use the computerized system to report, that doesn't count.
The newly formed tribunal, handling their very first case, accepts Yanina's reasons for failing to report. They basically concede all her points, admitting that their system wasn't working probably. But there is nothing in the rules about reprimanding the VDT for not doing their job properly. Instead, there is a rule that someone who fails to report three times in eighteen months gets a suspension of minimum one year. The tribunal shows how important and powerful they are by following this to the letter, circumstances be damned, even the prosecutor's recommendation of just a warning be damned... thereby wrecking the careers of two powerless individuals.
And what makes me angry is that people will make up their minds without bothering about the details. Most of us are inclined to trust the authorities, so if a tribunal suspended these two players, we suspect they must have done something wrong. So much so, that someone could write an ill-informed article like this.
The Flemish doping authorities have proved themselves a joke and have only damaged the struggle to keep the sport clean by suspending someone they knew was clean and had no intention of disobeying the rules. I won't be surprised if more people became cynical about doping tribunals because of this.
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While I don't like drug use to enhance performance, I especially don't like rules that take away our choices.
What if your boss at work needed to know where you were all the time even on your days off?
Just because it is a rule doesn't make it fair, reasonable, or right. There have been plenty of rules, laws, throughout history that have been totally wrong.
I went to a college where missing three classes meant an automatic failure. I failed German twice because of that rule, even though I was carrying better than a B average both times. I took German the third time from a professor who was more understanding and passed with a B. I did miss more than 3 classes.
A year suspension for failing to report her whereabouts 3 times, so grossly unfair, so grossly stupid.
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Your headline shows you just how clueless you truly are when it comes to sports, and in particular tennis.Tennis has NEVER been clean. Players are testing positive to drugs EVERY year. So how can you ask if the sport is STILL clean when it was NEVER clean to begin with?
You are an idiot!
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Your headline shows you just how clueless you truly are when it comes to sports, and in particular tennis.Tennis has NEVER been clean. Players are testing positive to drugs EVERY year. So how can you ask if the sport is STILL clean when it was NEVER clean to begin with?
You are an idiot!
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