Yet another wrinkle in the ongoing saga surrounding Australian Olympian Kylie Palmer‘s positive drug test: the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) claims the two-year delay between Palmer’s positive test and her official suspension stems from FINA ignoring WADA requests for further information.
Some background on the complex situation:
News broke just last week that Palmer, a former Olympic gold medalist, was dropping off the Australian team for this summer’s World Championships after learning of a drug test she’d failed all the way back in 2013.
FINA, the world swimming federation, responded shortly after, saying they had originally decided not to move forward with an anti-doping case against Palmer after two more tests of Palmer from the same meet came up negative.
The test Palmer failed showed only small amounts of a diuretic (not a performance enhancing drug itself, but one that can mask other performance enhancers) in her system, according to ABC. Her other two tests from the same week showed no traces of the diuretic, but her “B” sample from the failed test also showed the same low amounts as the “A” sample.
With FINA not pursuing the matter, Palmer was off the hook without knowing she’d even failed a test. But in February of 2015, nearly two years after the fact, the World Anti-Doping Agency requested documents from FINA, then went to the Court of Arbitration of Sport to force FINA to pursue a punishment of Palmer for a doping violation.
FINA notified Palmer of the failed test, and she voluntarily dropped off of Australia’s World Champs team under a provisional suspension while her case moved forward. But Palmer still denies taking any banned substances, and noted that the nearly-two-year delay between the test and the case makes it nearly impossible for her to retrace her steps and demonstrate how the substance got into her system without her knowledge – that’s what Palmer would have to do to escape a doping ban, or get her sentence lightened.
The blame seemed to be on WADA for taking so long to get involved in the process, but WADA fired back this week, claiming that it had requested the information from FINA twice in 2013 and was ignored in both instances.
EuroNews reports that WADA claims it requested information about Palmer’s failed test in October of 2013 and then again in December. WADA says both requests were ignored. It took nearly a year for FINA to finally notify WADA that it was closing the case and not pursuing a trial of Palmer.
Palmer will still comply with FINA’s proceedings before finding out her final punishment, and it doesn’t appear the case will be moved forward quick enough to potentially allow Palmer back in the water for Worlds, if she’s cleared. Palmer must now prove that the substance entered her body without her knowledge, or she could face a suspension of up to two years, a suspension that would keep her out of commission through the 2016 Rio Olympics.
It seems that the only party to this debacle that deserves a severe punishment is the FINA administrators. When an administrator gets something completely wrong what is the appropriate punishment?
I’m just sitting over here wondering how long it will take for people to realize how easy it is to beat doping tests in the first place.
Agree wholeheartedly with Devan. People do not realize the complexity of the systems already in place to make sure athletes do not fail doping tests.
EPO is undetectable after 3 days. Someone who isn’t being tested right now like one of our 18 and under starts or some other rising star around the world can dope to the max without worry and stop right before the Olympics and not get caught. Someone like Seliskar could get on EPO, testosterone, and whatever else there is and come off right before trials. He wouldn’t get caught. All he would have to do is skip Junior Worlds or whatever meet he is going to this year, say he has shoulder problems or something. He would probably win gold in the 200 fly in the Olympics if he did this.
The doping problem isn’t going to go away.… Read more »
wave rider – while it doesn’t invalidate most of what you said, swimmers like Andrew Seliskar are still eligible to be tested, even if not competing, by the USADA. Seliskar was tested by USADA twice already this year (though they don’t give a breakdown of if those were in or out of competition).
Why dont they test those who win right after their events? I assumed that anyone in the top 3 of any competition would be drug tested on the spot – am I that naive?
No way. This couldn’t possibly be a dumpster fire from FINA.
When this sport’s governing body cannot even respond to the world anti doping authority upon two requests for information, it either means FINA is corrupt from the top to bottom or totally inept. It’s time to flush the toilet.
Or both.