Just days after South Korean swimmer Park Tae Hwan got down on his knees in front of the Korean Olympic Committee, begging for an opportunity to race for South Korea at this summer’s Games in Rio, surveys from him home country point to public support of the controversial swimmer.
According to a report by Korea Herald, a local pollster showed that 70.9 percent of South Koreans would like to see Park race at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio this August. This public sentiment is rooted in the fact at the 26-year-old earned gold in 4 events at his nation’s Olympic Trials (100m/200m/400m/1500m freestyle) upon completion of his 18-month ban for having tested positively for steroids back in 2014.
Still, Park is subject to the Korean Olympic Committee’s (KOC) own sanction, which prohibits banned athletes from being selected to national teams for a period of 3 years. For Park, this means he would be ineligible for an Olympic Games until 2020 when he would be 30 years of age.
Although Park has not publicly spoken about potential legal action against the KOC, Richard Pound, former head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has voiced his own opposition to the KOC’s stance.
Pound points to the fact that the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS), the world’s highest sports tribunal, had already determined that the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) similar ‘Osaka Rule’ to be invalid. The rule, very similar to the KOC’s punitive ban, barred athletes who had served a doping-related suspension, from competing at an Olympic Games for at least 6 months.
The Osaka Rule was “a violation of the IOC’s own Statute and is therefore invalid and unenforceable” and thus annulled.
Why is this still being discussed in South Korea? Unless the additional 3 year penalty was something they tacked on after the fact, he hasn’t a leg to stand on as the additional time penalty should not have been a surprise to him.
Wake up everyone. We’re all being set up by the Korean sport machine doing everything they can to massage this through the Korean system. I’d put the over/under at May 15th as the date Korea gets around to letting us all know PTH (or is it THP?) will be competing in Rio.
70.9% is less relevant as a statistic than the results of any swim swam readers’ poll. How was the question worded? Margin of error? Sample size? Who commissioned the poll?
You are exactly right. That photo of Park on his hands and knees is just a North Korean-style propaganda pic. It’s a setup, and the result is a foregone conclusion.
I would like to steal something of value from the 70.9% of the “turn the page” crowd and see if their opinion changes. There needs to consequences to cheating otherwise cheaters will destroy the integrity of the sport.
Doping is not a victimless crime. It denies hard working innocent athletes of World Championship, Olympic, and National medals. There is so much data available on the clearance times from PEDs that if an athlete is caught, they are grossly greedy pushing their cheating to the last minute. The real question is how long have they been cheating? How many innocent swimmers have been damaged by the greed of the likes of Hwan, Hardy, Cielo, and the Chinese?
The Osaka rule… Read more »
See my comments above.
The challenge is that a large number of positive tests are the result of tainted supplements, poorly administered medical treatments, etc.
To be sure – and, again, see my comments above – a professional athlete is solely responsible for what goes into their bodies and an accidental positive test is still a positive test. There must be some sort of punishment for that but, as a point of law, that punishment must be reasonable.
As a sidebar, one of the very interesting facts of doping control is the degree to which it really does fundamentally contradict one the central tenets of common law. The presumption of innocence is suspended when athletes are subject to… Read more »
If you really think these postive tests are actually from “tainted” supplements, I have some real estate to sell you. Seriously, you think Clenbuterol “accidentally” finds its way into a protein shake, Gatorade, or multi-vitamin. China tried selling us the excuse their swimmers all of a sudden were best in the world because they ate turtle blood soup. Do yourself a favor and watch a bunch of bait car videos and see how perps lie when caught. Not one admits to having stolen a car, even though video evidence proves they stole the cop’s bait car.
Athletes are catheterizing themselves in hotel rooms and exchanging their urine for someone else’s clean urine. They are transfusing their own packed red blood… Read more »
I will say that some of those claims that it was from a tainted suplement are bogus, but what about the ones that are real? For instance, Rick DeMont lost the gold medals that he earned in 1972 because there was a SNAFU with the US team doctor and his Asthma medicine was not propoerly reported to the IOC… There are plenty of athletes like that as well. Do those people deserve the same lifetime ban for something completely outside of their control? If they don’t, how do we tell which athletes are the real cheaters and which are innocent? I’m not saying that these are easy questions, but I’m saying that from an ethical perspective there needs to be… Read more »
Yeah, the Rick DeMont case was tragic and he lost his medal. Is there something more recent? I would say the vast majority of the cases are actually lies concocted to save face.
the Osaka Rule is out. The USOC prevailed against the IOC before CAS. Cannot punish twice for the same violation.
Here we go! Juice it up!
Man, they’re really building up the come back story over there. You would swear Park was the protagonist and the KOC were the antagonists…
To a certain extent, the KOC is the antagonist. The issue is what is a fair and reasonable punishment, plus there’s restriction of trade.
Park was suspended by FINA and served his time. Is it reasonable that the KOC further punish him? One the principles of common law is that you can’t be punished twice for the same crime. If that is what the KOC is doing, then – as a point of law – they probably shouldn’t be doing it.
Plus, Park is a professional athlete. This is how he makes his living. The KOC, it could be argued – again, as a point of common law – is engaged in unfair restriction of trade. They are unduly… Read more »
Oh I totally get everything you’re saying. Legally yea, it doesn’t make much sense to punish someone twice for the same crime. But if you were to make a movie about this I would have a hard time believing Park was the good guy, and I think that’s what they’re trying to do here. For starters, he blamed his doctor for giving him steroids without consent. The doctor came out and said no, that’s not the case. And then a few days ago he’s on his knees begging the KOC to let him compete. Innocent people don’t get on their knees and beg, it just doesn’t happen. So by now it’s pretty understood that Park will stoop however low is… Read more »
The doctor couldn’t – or wouldn’t – admit to knowingly inject something illegal because if he did, he’d be opening himself to all kinds of lawsuits.
Think of the scenario: You, the athlete, need treatment for something and you come to me, the doctor. Before treatment, you tell me – repeatedly – that you are subject to doping control and ask – again, repeatedly – am I sure that I’m not treating you with a banned substance. I assure we’re good and we proceed. Turns out I was wrong, you test positive, are banned and lose a ton of money.
No way I’m going to admit that mistake because if I did, I’d be sued – as I… Read more »
Alright, those are fair points I had not considered. Still don’t think he should be competing at the Olympics, but that’s a difference of opinions.
Of all the things to be sad about — all those athletes who finished trials and just missed making teams, every US swimmer who will be 3rd at US Trials, etc. — I just can’t summon an ounce of empathy for Park.
I thought it was testosterone . A steroid injection is wide ranging -my dog is on steroids to try to break an immune response anaemia . He went from not eating for a week & staring at the wall to eating us poor & walking 7kms. I am impressed. I can see how athletes get addicted to this stuff. Its magic!
Maybe the vet will give him a testosterone injection so I can compare. I can see how sports doctors get addicted too.
I really don’t buy this restriction of trade argument. The guy was always free to get on an airplane and fly anywhere in the world and swim if someone wants to pay him to come. Who says he can only swim for South Korea and under Fina rules. Go form a doper swim league and make him the star athlete if you want.
The ability to represent one’s country in an international competition is a priviledge that has to be granted by the national federation which I think is within their rights to make the rules and restrict convicted dopers from being on the team. I think the federation really has their hands tied because its not kosher to… Read more »
What goes around comes around. Usual ban for testosterone is 2 years for first offence. So why did FINA decide on 18 months, which happened to end 1 month prior to Olympics? Perhaps $$$???!!!
There is also now a ton of medical evidence that testosterone aids athletes well beyond the cycle that they take it for, perhaps for even up to 10 years. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/jphysiol.2013.264457/abstract
I applaud the KOC if you really want to get cheating out of sport this is a great start!!