On Sun, 1 Oct 2000 02:46:07 EDT, you wrote:
>In a message dated 9/30/00 9:59:47 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>
><< drugs-positives still unresolved. Craig Masback, their chief executive, has
> declared none of the 10 are competing in Sydney, >>
>
>
>What does this have to do with anything/? If you test positive, you should be
>punished? Correct?
>
>
>Schiefer
In the U.S. system "unresolved positives" don't exist as far as public
release of any information. Neither do any cases which have been judged in
favor of the athlete. Just revealing that an accusation had been lodged
(an initial "A" sample positive is an accusation) has been ruled to be
permanently damaging to the athlete's reputation. Masback didn't make that
ruling. McCaffrey didn't make that ruling. But it has certainly been
etched in stone.
Nobody has yet identified an overriding reason why an athlete's reputation
has to be damaged unnessarily. When the verdict comes down, THEN is
the time to go public with it. So says the current legal environment.
How's this for an analogy:
People who are accused of a felony are always allowed to
post bail and 'be on the street' while awaiting trial,
UNLESS the likelihood that they are guilty is very strong,
AND their presence 'on the street' is judged to be a severe
threat to public safety.
The power to make the decision on whether bail should be allowed
or not is granted to a judge.
Some other countries don't have any such thing as 'bail'.
You sit your butt in jail no matter how long you have to wait
for a trial, and no matter if it means you can't go to work and
your wife and kids are starving. If it's not outright
'guilty until proven innocent' and 'burden of proof is on the
accused', it certainly points in that direction.
People who grew up in those countries tend to think that's the
way it's always been, that's the way it SHOULD be, and that's
the best way. At least, until THEY are the one sitting their
butt in the jail cell, or it's THEIR spouse sitting in jail
while you starve.
Neither the USATF, the USOC, or the IAAF has been able up until
this point to convince any United States judge that the need
to keep an athlete out of track meet (i.e. suspend them from work
without pay) while their case is 'pending' outweighs the need of
that athlete to 'earn a living'- i.e. putting cheese and crackers
on the table for the wife and kids. Furthermore, keeping them out
would permanently damage their earnings power REGARDLESS of the
outcome of the case.
People like Merode and Lundquist resent U.S. case law.
They think the need to keep a meet 'clean' in even the remotest
sense, ESPECIALLY from a public relations perspective, outweighs
the need of any specific individual athlete to earn a living.
In their view, even if the athlete is later found innocent,
and they've missed income from 15 consecutive meets, and
their family is on the street begging, that's the price to
pay for having the perception of squeeky cleanness.
We have cultural, societal and political differences butting
up against each other here. I doubt there is a solution in
the next 100 years.
We've got people who've been taught from birth that communism,
or socialism are the path of the future, we've got representative
democracies, we've got republics, we've got monarchs and Lords
and Earls. And everybody thinks their model is the best model.
Cultures need a couple of more centuries of assimilation to
get to the point where we have pretty much common views of
fairness and where to balance the scale between individual
rights and "the common good".
[the internet and other wide-open communications like this
list will help]
I suspect that almost any U.S. judge would be willing to
listen to Merode or Lundquist present their case in an athletic
doping 'right-to-work' trial.
Of course Merode and Lundquist think it would be 'beneath
them' to stand in front of U.S. judge and plead ANYTHING.
That's part of the problem too. Still a lot of Class-conciousness
in some parts of the world, along with resentment of the
most successful countries.
The simplistic notion of the statement by Lundquist yesterday
that people like Masback and McCaffrey need to just 'solve it'
shows just how ignorant he is about how complex these issues are.
He thinks that some simple 'decree' could be issued and that
would solve everything. Maybe that works in Belgium or Sweden,
but not in countries with a check-and-balance form of government.
It's evident that Lundquist should stay in the medical labs and
let people experienced in international legal matters work it.
He's out of his territory.
P.S. LET them kick the U.S. out of the IAAF or IOC or whatever.
Don't forget that American broadcast and American corporate
sponsorship dollars get kicked out too. No more way for people
like Pound and Lundquist to cool their heels in 5-star hotels,
until they put it on their OWN charge card.
And don't expect any more U.S. track scholarship money for
your kids or 'residency' for Bolden, Bailey et al.
Watch the Bahamian and Jamaican relays crumble as a result.
This may sound arrogant, but the Olympics and international
athletics needs the U.S. a lot more than the U.S. needs the Olympics.
The U.S. would just build up something like the Goodwill Games
and call it the 'true world championship', and it's not too
much of a stretch to imagine that it probably WOULD become just
that.
Kind of like the NFL needs Los Angeles a lot more than
Los Angeles needs the NFL. Just a statement of fact.
P.S.S.- next time Lundquist's country is too wimpy to defend
itself from an invasion by the Russians, don't call on the U.S.
to come bail them out of their troubles.
After all, if it was worth the Russian's time to go to the
trouble to invade, it's primae facea (sp?) evidence that Lundquist
and his countrymen must have been doing something wrong, so
occupation by an outside power is a good thing to happen, to get
the wrongs righted :-)
They failed the "A" sample of national defense, so a temporary
occupation is in the world's best interest, even if martial law
is declared and a few innocent citizens get rounded up and
marched in front of firing squads to meet a quota.
What's good enough for the goose...
P.S.S.- all the current evidence of American wrong-doing by
people in charge (if you're interested in bothering to look
at facts) points at the USOC , and to some extent perhaps
the old TAC organization, not to the current USATF.
I believe that's the meaning behind the reference by
Masback this week to an 'unresolvable conflict of having
to work with both USOC and the IAAF'.
I doubt there's too many people overseas (even non-Americans
on this list?) who understand that the USOC is not the same
thing as the USATF- or care.
I would like somebody to tell me where in the current Hunter
case the USATF failed to follow any protocol agreements with
the IAAF. Somebody who knows the facts.
RT
