The Witch Hunt Continues

The Orange County Register wrote:

<<In the 10 months leading up to the 2001 World Track and Field Championships, the anti-doping agency conducted 926 tests on U.S. track athletes. Of those tests, 20 percent were without warning.

Some of track's biggest names weren't given surprise tests by the U.S. agency: Maurice Greene and Tim Montgomery, the first- and second-place finishers in the 100 meters; and John Godina and Adam Nelson, first and second in the shot put. All of these star athletes passed drug tests at competitions.

Athletes can still be surprise-tested by international federations, but the U.S. agency doesn't coordinate or share testing schedules with these groups.>>

Hey guys, whether the two groups coordinated or not, we know that all those you name were tested out of competition--TWICE--by the IAAF or they wouldn't have received their World Champs prize money.

You can slam domestic testers for not getting enough done, but to name these names and suggest that they were somehow dirty is pretty shoddy journalism.

[jsquire]

Re: The Witch Hunt Continues

What makes this a "witch-hunt"? Do you think that every athlete in the world is clean? Or do you think that only US athletes are clean?

We know that in the past the AAU/TAC/USATF and USOC were less than transparent in their handling of drug-testing, and at least in some cases either covered up positive tests or allowed others to do so. Journalists are supposed to be suspicious of authority, and I think they have every reason to be as far as drug-testing goes.

Re: The Witch Hunt Continues

Well, I happen to think it is journalists' job to unearth info of this kind. Someone has definitely screwed up there... If these athletes are clean and unafraid of tests, they should be publicly complaining they don't get tested !!! Maybe Mo can afford to lose US$ 50,000 (which is the prize money you get for a world championship gold), but for a shotputter it must be a hell of a lot of money...

BTW, I know there were a few WCh medallists who didn't receive their prize money since they didn't undergo enough out-of-competition tests. Does anyone know who they were? The only athlete who I know was on the list is Gail Devers...

[jsquire]

Re: The Witch Hunt Continues

>BTW, I know there were a few WCh
>medallists who didn't receive their prize money
>since they didn't undergo enough
>out-of-competition tests. Does anyone know who
>they were? The only athlete who I know was on the
>list is Gail Devers...

The German 400 meter man Ingo Schultz didn't get tested enough. I'm not sure whether or not he got his money; he almost literally came out of nowhere. The previous year he wasn't fast enough to be on the list of people to test.