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Sorry but I don't have time to post the salient points from the ruling right now.
Did Stewart use medication / PED without consenting FIM? Yes
Did he have a TUE before the positive test? No
Was Stewart negligent? Yes
However,
Did Stewart have a legitimate reason to use aderall? Yes
- He was diagnosed for ADHD in 2012 (by several doctors) and started to use aderall ever since. A TUE would have been granted if he had submitted every document at the right time.
Did Stewart gained any advantage compared to other competitors because of his medicine? No
- Stewart's medication insures that his concentration level is the same as an average person. He had a deficit compared to any normal person and now it's just the same.
For me, this is a big difference compared to people who actually cheat (= taking PEDs without any medical reason and only for the purpose to gain advantage over the competition). Therefore he should not have a 16 - 24 months ban like those people but more 6 - 12 months ...
Piss off
No idea who is right though ... I did read somewhere that the suspension does prohibit him from riding any event (international, national, one time, series, ...)
I have zero doubt that if he and his camp took the testing seriously and knew adderall was banned they could have gotten a TUE. In fact, they have the TUE now. Maybe I suspend him for SX but I see the FIM's argument here.
The whole process is a complete joke though. This document was not professional at all. James deserved some sort of punishment but no one deserves to be put through this hilarious process. He didn't know the punishment until a few weeks before SX started.
Pit Row
Which, from reading the report, sounded like it wasn't a problem. But they felt superior in their judgement and thought he shouldn't have raced.
Honestly, I don't see how or why the FIM is even needed in any series in the US. And I can bet you this, if the guys at MX Sports were the ones handling AC222's suspension if he were to be caught in this predicament, the people in support of the MXGP series would be having a fucking tantrum as well.
There's nothing controversial about Stew being penalized, even if people can't accept that. People outside the sport who look at this for guidance on doping regulation under the WDC are going to say "nothing new here." Hopefully with the notoriety of this ~ Stews folly and apparently the complete abdication by his support team, including Suzuki, and the avoidablility of all this ~ people will be more diligent in view of the cautionary tale on PED.
But two things can be true at the same time, and the biggest thing out of this is that the FIM tried to assert authority over a top motorcycle racing series and was told it has none. That's huge. I'm sure MXSports did not want to be in the middle of this, which is what happened when Stew decided to continue racing, but it's not a bad thing to have the top sports tribunal in the world establish that you, not someone else, governs your affairs.
And do you feel like the FIM is needed in anyway when it comes to SX or MX int the US?
The problem is that it is a one size fits all model that smaller sports buy into when they cannot afford to have their own system with penalties tailored to the frequency of that sports specific competition. The extreme example is that an Olympic athlete would have missed zero Olympics and Stew will have missed three championship opportunities and close to 30 points and purse paying races.
It's great to view PED testing as some sort of branding that legitimizes a sport, like an organic sticker on produce, but that's just marketing IMO, and it begs e question of whether the regime you adopt makes sense for the sport at hand.
But, as a litigator, I'm rarely a witness to sensibility. I'm on the back end when the wheels come off and you wonder what the hell people thought they were doing overplaying their position. The FIM just found out it's less powerful than it thought, the question is how they react. The oems were intolerant of the SX wars back in 03 and I suspect less now of those sorts of turf battles. Motorcycle racing is too small for these organizations not to cooperate, and other than the business cesspool of the SX/MX Commission, which has sold out to Youthstream and rides it's coat tails, the FIM is a solid and important body for motorcycling. These things get screwy when the revenue stream from racing is implicated; that's what led the AMA to get out of professional racing.
The fact that they were willing to force an answer to a reality everyone has been adapting to pretty well since 2008 just reflects bureaucratic arrogance, regardless of the fact that Stews violation and penalty played out as they would in any sport.
Because everyone wanted it that way.
Well obviously, what point are you trying to make here? First of all, the MXGP series is run by Youthstream in much the same way the MX Sports run the AMA nationals, and they have had nothing to do with this entire process. So the opposite of this situation would not be for MX Sports to handle a European riders ban. Neither Youthstream or MX sports have any jurisdiction over anything except the series that they run. This process has been handled by the FIM, which is the INTERNATIONAL federation for all motorcycle sport, WADA, which is the WORLD anti-doping association, and the court of arbitration for sport, which again, covers sport all over the world. This is not a Europe vs America thing. Stewart broke the rules and as such he had to go through exactly the same procedures as any other athlete from any other country would do
Post a reply to: CAS FULL REASONED AWARD IN CASE OF JAMES STEWART