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"And before anybody says "this is what everyone wanted, and this is the result", no, nobody told us that we would be essentially selling our souls to the testing organization, and had we been aware of how things would be handled I'm willing to bet the consensus would have been a lot different."
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It's enormously costly to put an effective testing program into place. If the notion is simply that we're going to pile a ton of money unrelated to sport into an scientific/medical industry, now motivated to sustain itself like any bureaucracy, because the deterrent of "might be caught randomly" may cause intentional cheats to think twice, count me out. Especially for a one size fits all regime that treats someone who competes a couple times a year in major events the same as someone who competes in 27 title points paying rounds. The biggest problem with the WDC, which WADA recognizes but hasn't really done anything about but make the penalties even harsher, is the lack of proportionality of its penalties among sports that unfold at different rhythms. That's effectively what has everyone upset. Stew has only himself to blame, but it's fair to ask now that people see how it works whether this program fits this sport.
The cost at issue is not the sort of myopic one-rider per-rider tally thing; that gives you a picture of the individual consequences, but whether in a sport this small it makes to add this layer of compliance on to all the guys who show up to try to qualify for a SX or outdoors race. IMO, PED's are not the biggest threat to this sport, and not it's biggest problem, and this "solution" not one that makes it any easier to solve those problems. There is going to be a lot of money going out of this sport for compliance that will never come back to it, and it's worth asking whether the sport would be better off, if those resources in promoter and rider time and money are better devoted elsewhere.
Or at least whether there is a better way to go about PED regulation tailored to this sport.
I'm all for anything which perturbs the kids to drugs as a means to perform.
Which, coincidentally, is also why I have a hard time believing Davi had something which are proven to be kidney bashers in his use... doesn't he only have one kidney?
It shouldn't be surprising that the athletes bumble this when you think about the real world experiences and skills many of them have after their youth has been focused on a narrow little beam of performance.
The real issue here is that too often that sheltering includes a group for support whose selection turns on loyalty rather than competence.
But keep in mind that we never hear of anyone having their TUE, so in this case, where compliance is really pretty straightforward if an athlete needs a truly therapeutic drug (validated in Stew's case), the catches you see are the dummy exceptions, probably not the rule.
Davi did lose a kidney. I don't know facts about his situation currently (haven't been trying to sift it out of the BS here), but it wouldn't surprise me to have an athlete in the sport be given something by someone that is not integrated into the rider's conventional medical treatment that would hurt the athlete. There are a thousand unconventional treaters out there telling people what's good for them and directing care with more or less knowledge about the riders overall health situation and care.
(Here's why you shouldn't try and post while driving in to work...about half the message I *thought* I was posting was gone.)
The other half was...
Do I know you? Do you have a history of posting credible info on stuff like? If so, I hadn't seen it.
I often have a healthy dose of skepticism. That's what you saw. The team was being tight-lipped until this morning.
When I say more efficient, I mean that baring in mind it takes anywhere between 20 minutes and 2 hours to test one athlete random testing is more efficient (and less costly...) than having WADA officials show up to test between 60 - 80 riders at the start of each series, then a further 20 riders at the first round, as well as random tests throughout the rest of the season. You said yourself it's enormously costly to put an effective testing program into place.
Letting athletes compete in the knowledge that WADA or USADA or whoever could turn unnanounced at any time seems one of the most logical and less costly ways of deterring athletes from cheating.
Ditch the FIM and AMA, have Feld run Supercross like a circus which they have some experience doing.
Ditch the AMA and MXSports and have the Outdoor Nationals go back to the National Promoters Group.
Pro MX/SX drug testing has been a fiasco in it's current incarnation.
Stop the insanity!
Pit Row
My post from 4/21/15 is below.....
I have been trying to keep up with some of this the best that I can and one thing keeps popping into my head that I don't think has been talked about by anyone. With me being in the health insurance industry, I can honestly say that someone is in violation of JS7's HIPPA rights. Has that been brought up anywhere? For those of you not knowing what the HIPPA Law is, google "HIPPA Law Violation" and take a peak. This is a pretty serious thing if someone leaked personal medical information that carries some pretty hefty fines and/or prison time. That, in my eyes has way more weight in a lawsuit then not telling him whether or not his appeal was approved or denied on a certain date. Maybe that is why JS7 is staying silent through all of this.
All the FIM/WADA press release said was that Stewarts sample tested positive for amphetamines.
The Adderall/ADD explanation came form Stewarts camp.
I choose to look at the glass half full: James is doing a reboot with getting a break from the travel grind. No way to know for sure but perhaps we will get these 8 months back at the end of his career when he races longer because of the time off?
Post a reply to: Official JS7 appeal lost