K.3.5 Where the Chairman grants the Player’s application and rules that no Provisional Suspension should be imposed on the Player, or that a Provisional Suspension previously imposed on the Player should be vacated, then (subject only to the possibility of reconsideration in light of new evidence) that decision will be final and binding on the parties, and the ITF shall have no right of appeal against it.
The Chairman has the right to end any drug investigation before it would go to the tribunal, while still imposing a "quiet" suspension (if I'm reading this correctly). It would seem by this apparent loophole that players could effectively be suspended for drug violations without it being made public and resume playing once the suspension is served with no one the wiser.
By the way, does anyone know if during a Provisional Suspension, an exhibition tournament would be allowable based on this below?:
A Player may not, during the period of any Provisional Suspension, play, coach or otherwise participate in any capacity in (a) a Covered Event, any other Event or Competition, or any other kind of function, event or activity (other than authorised anti-doping education or rehabilitation programmes) authorised, organised or sanctioned by the ITF, the ATP, the WTA, or any National Association or member of a
National Association; or (b) any Event or Competition authorised or organised by any professional league or any other international or national-level Event organisation...
You probably think about Nadal, but if he would have been caught with something, I don't think that he would have got just two months of suspension.
ReplyDeleteI think that Henin's case is much more interesting.
And Nadal was the one who criticized the ATP publicly for covering what Agassi did.
ReplyDeleteIf wouldn't make sense.
I'm thinking about every player who ever took a long break for an "injury" or other reasons. Yes, though, the last part of the post was related to the fact that Nadal was rumored to have been suspended last year, was complaining about drug tests right after receiving one, showed up only for an exhibition before Wimbledon, then announced that he couldn't play in Wimbledon (right after missing a scheduled drug test).
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't the first time when Nadal was skipping an important tournament because of injury.
ReplyDeleteAnd he already looked bad at Madrid and RG and even before. You could tell that he's not feeling very well. He overplayed and he paid the price.
But there are many players who dissapear 6 months, a year or more like Nalbandian, Haas or Henin.
Look, I don't think that Nadal has a significant knee injury (not even tendonitis). I base that on my subjective opinion of how he runs around the court. Nevertheless, there is no point in defending Nadal until he takes the time to tell us where he was on June 14th, 2009 and why he did not have his scheduled drug test done on that day. In fact, there is no point in defending any player who missed a drug test and remains silent about it. Let them speak for themselves.
ReplyDelete@10:01
ReplyDeleteof course it would make sense for the big culprits to openly and vehemently criticize covering for other players or chastize other players who are caught and the case has made public. That is part of the image of innocence they want to portray.
On a smaller scale, as a teacher I once made the general announcement for students to keep their eyes on their own papers during a test, to which the one I actually saw cheating yelled out, "I am not cheating" While this is a different situation, of course Nadal is not going to say it's ok for the ATP to cover up the Agassi story or it's ok that Agassi took drugs ... that would be stupid. He has probably come under a lot of heat/suspicion for drug use and of course has to come out and denounce all drug cheats and cover ups, yet on the otherhand is one of the most vocal against drug testings practices...
Nadal's reaction was normal and what he said makes perfect sense.
ReplyDeleteBesides, Agassi was covered up by the ATP and now the drug tests are conducted by a different organization.
June 14th, 2009
ReplyDeleteSend an email and ask. Maybe you'll get an answer.
ReplyDeletemedia@b1pr.com
Do steroids help a player to have a better serve?
ReplyDeleteI'm quite sure I won't get an answer, but I'll be happy to send the e-mail. I done a lot of e-mailing and I don't get very many e-mail replies.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 12:30,
ReplyDeleteThat would be my assumption. It apparently helped many baseball pitchers with their fastball and allowed them to play into their 40's, so I would assume it would do the same for a tennis serve, since it's a fairly similar motion.
and Martina Navratilova played professional singles until she was 40 or beyond and played double until almost 50 and was still winning matches. Not to take away from her athlecticism or ability, but why then are Graf and Seles no longer playing professional tennis till 40? They both stopped at about 30 ...
ReplyDeleteI was thinking about Roddick's serve and the fact that people are used to it and see it as something normal. He could hit those bombs all day long. This year he played 30 matches (more than any other player) and made 4 finals.
ReplyDeleteHe made the final of Indian wells and this week again and he didn't show any sign of tiredness. Hitting 135 m/h serves constantly.
And I forgot to mention that he skipped the World Tour Finals from the end of last year because of injury.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.menstennisforums.com/showthread.php?t=159996
ReplyDeleteSo what you are implying is that any top player caught doping is quietly told to miss a few months of scheduled play |"without reprecussions" and nothing is said?
ReplyDeleteSo is Del Potro coming back after a "quiet suspension" And if so then we have to assume that he won the US Open unfairly.
"I think that Henin's case is much more interesting."
ReplyDeleteInteresting how ? Are you somehow implying that her so called retirement was in fact a quiet suspension? Please No!
Tauziat's book was written in 2000 and published in early 2001. She was not talking about *now*.
ReplyDeleteAgassi's positive test WAS NOT covered up by the ATP. Let's stop repeating that. At that time, positive tests were not announced untl after the enquiry. No cover up. HE covered it up by lying about the cause of the positive test. An independent jury accepted his excuse and so the case was never made public. No cover up. It had nothing to do with the ATP. The procedures in place at the time were followed.
ReplyDeleteLook I'm very concerned (post on Odesnik playing this week in Houston which is blowing my mind above) but it doesn't help make the case when you keep conflating Agassi lying about a rec drug test twelve years ago under very different procedures to what is going on perhaps now. It just muddies the water instead of making a stronger case.
Agassi wasn't suspended because the independent jury accepted his lie. The ATP didn't cover it up. That case has no bearing here.
ReplyDeleteTexas Tennis,
ReplyDeleteWe went through this on another website, remember?
We have Wilander outed before Agassi:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1310&dat=19960129&id=GH8VAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6-sDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5314,6501795
and Gasquet and Hingis after. If you can show where the rule was briefly changed, to keep drug positive tests secret, then changed back again, then you have a point. Otherwise, it was a coverup.
The rules then though said confidentiality until the investigation was concluded. Wilander was outed - as was Rusedki - against procedures at the time ie their names were leaked. In the other nandrolene cases though (the issue Rusedki was involved with), the other players were never named except I think one ie the rule of confidentiality was observed. There was quite a fuss in the British press at the time about the Rusedski leak and he was furious that his name was leaked and other players weren't. The rule was broken there with the leaking, not with the confidentiality.
ReplyDeleteWhen tennis came under WADA rules (after the Agassi case) they changed to the current procedures where positive tests are announced and then the investigation proceeds.
So the rules were not changed briefly to allow confidentiality; confidentiality was then the rule until the end of the investigation, and then (last ten years or so under WADA) announcing the results before the investigation became the rule.
For a story you will love however - look at www.tennistalk.com now two stories on Houston - both mention Odesnik and neither mentions the hgh. I wrote a comment and the "journalist' responsible responded she "wasn't commissioned" to cover that and didn't feel comfortable covering it. LOL. Now there's a cover up.
Tennis didn't come under WADA until last year, which would explain Gasquet, but not Hingis. Hingis tested positive at Wimbledon in '07, but I don't think it was made public until November of that year. I don't have access to the 2007 policies, but I'm guessing they are about the same as now. Really, the only evidence that Agassi was under a different policy at the time he tested positive is the word of a guy from the ITF. I'm unimpressed by their word.
ReplyDeleteIt's sad that journalists would write those stories without mentioning Odesnik, but I have seen it so often while doing this blog that I am used to it. You'd think with such a clear case, they would at least try, but there is really a lack of courage in journalism in sports (and elsewhere for that matter). The reason for this, I think, is that journalists are more and more under the financial control of the entities they report on. Sports journalists are expected to effectively promote the sport, not dig for dirt or express negative opinions.
Although Nadal has withdrawn from Wimbledon, he did it after the entry list and the draw were released and Murray took his place in the draw after that, so somehow he was involved in the event.
ReplyDeleteOn June 13 2009 Nadal was supposed to play a charity event in Genève, but eventually he had to skip it, because of the knees.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if he made it there or not, but I thought this might be interesting.
http://www.eventim.ch/francais/fr/sport/sports_divers/all_stars_2009/71302/