In the last few years swim meet flyers have included an anti-doping condition. It is usually simple, something like,  

All participants must agree to comply with the Sports Anti-Doping Rules.

That seems clear. The sport has a set of anti-doping rules. Swimmers must agree to abide by those rules. Avoid any substance on the banned list and all should be well. Oh, if life was only that simple. While the rule is clear the administration of the sport’s anti-doping rules is a pig’s ear, marked with confusion, double standards and deals done in the dark corners of power.

Every swimmer must agree to abide by the anti-doping rules. But in making that commitment swimmers potentially enter a world of administrative corruption.

For example consider the implications of the Russian 15 year old ice skater, Kamila Valieva who has tested positive for the banned heart drug, trimetazidine, and has been cleared to continue competing by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). The Court gave her a favourable decision in part because she is under 16, known in Olympic jargon as a “protected person,” and is subject to different rules from an adult athlete.

“The panel considered that preventing the athlete to compete at the Olympic Games would cause her irreparable harm in the circumstances,” CAS Director General Matthieu Reeb said.

The Russians have got away with it again. The implications for swimming are huge. Next week the Waikato Championships are being held in Hamilton. 128 (60%) of the 215 swimmers entered are under 16. What does the CAS decision mean for them? Is it okay to get out the hypodermic needle and juice up knowing that CAS will rule that any sanction will cause “irreparable harm”? Are coaches really free to bring a cabinet full of pills to the pool for their under 16 swimmers, knowing that WADA and Swimming New Zealand label them “protected persons”?

It is an awful nonsense. The very young who need protection most are free to do what they and/or their coaches like. Either the IOC, CAS, Swimming New Zealand and WADA are intent on stamping out drug use or they are not. I got an email yesterday from one of the most highly respected coaches in New Zealand sport. This is what it said:

Hi David

I see that the IOC have decided that certain athletes can still compete in the Olympics even if they have tested positive for a prohibited drug. It would be interesting to discover the reasons behind this disgraceful decision. The IOC should be charged with complicity with or attempt to cover up an anti- doping rule violation by an athlete or other person. The IOC should be doing everything in its power to deter and detect dopers and holding dopers to account. The decision by the IOC encourages doping to the detriment of all clean athletes.

The email is absolutely right. The Swimming New Zealand meet condition clause, “All participants must agree to comply with the Sports Anti-Doping Rules” means nothing. If you are under 16 and doped up to your eyebrows, that’s just fine by those who run sport.

But it is not only young swimmers affected by administrative incompetence. Remember the Trent Bray case where the lab left his sample on a shelf in the sun for six weeks before testing. It took Trent years and thousands of dollars to clear his name. Even my daughter, Jane, was tested at the Nationals in Dunedin, only to discover that the sample tested in Australia had a different number from the sample she signed for at the meet. She asked for an explanation and was told, “Oh, sorry the paperwork got lost in Auckland during transit, so we had to allocate a new number.”

That sort of mismanagement is not good enough. Athlete’s careers are at stake. New Zealand authorities need to sharpen up their administration and world authorities need to mean what they say, when they tell us the goal is to eliminate drugs from sport. Otherwise stop insulting us with that ridiculous drug clause in your meet flyers. It means nothing.