No Opposition Supporters CAS hands down guilty verdict - Players appealing - Dank shot - no opposition - (cont in pt.2)

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TheGreatBarryB

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Roy, Roy, Roy...dear oh dear...

Russian doping scandal won't help Essendon Bombers in WADA appeal
Date
November 11, 2015 - 4:00PM
  • 53 reading now

Roy Masters
Sports Columnist
View more articles from Roy Masters

International condemnation of possible doping violations by Russian athletes will not help Essendon's case before the Court of Arbitration for Sport, if comments by ASADA chief executive, Ben McDevitt, are a guide.

In a strong statement, McDevitt claimed doping was not restricted to Russian track and field athletes, suggesting WADA's counsel will argue passionately for a guilty verdict in next week's CAS appeal in Sydney.

McDevitt said of the revelations by WADA of Russian cheating: "Extraordinary allegations of corruption, cover up, systematic doping and orchestrated avoidance of testing and destruction of samples. These allegations of state-sponsored doping and collusion between the responsible international federation, state institutions, including the laboratory security services and ASADA's equivalent in Russia are the worst of the worst. Disgraceful, distressing and so hugely disappointing for clean athletes around the globe. Unfortunately, however, it is clear that this is not limited to Russia or to athletics."


Next week's hearing, where WADA has appealed an AFL Doping tribunal decision to free 34 past and present Essendon players of charges of using prohibited substances, will be closed to the public unless both parties consent to an open hearing. This is extremely rare in sport arbitration and Essendon's negotiations with Work Safe Victoria, concerning breaches of safety, indicate the club does not want some material made public.

The hearing is "de novo", meaning new evidence can be considered but if this material was available at the first instance, when the AFL Tribunal met, it is unlikely it would be allowed.

The same "comfortable satisfaction" test, which applied when the AFL Tribunal came down with its March 31 verdict that it was "not comfortably satisfied that any player violated clause 11.2 of the AFL Anti-Doping code", applies.

In other words, the three CAS judges will hear the same evidence and may reach a different conclusion.

For example, CAS is expected to re-examine scientific evidence (including mass spectrometry weightings), which ASADA had argued clearly showed the substance delivered to Essendon was a perfect match for the banned thymosin-beta 4 and should have been accepted by the AFL Tribunal.

ASADA chose not to challenge the AFL Tribunal decision, aware the appeal would be heard in another AFL jurisdiction, but encouraged WADA to exercise its right of taking the case to CAS.

WADA obviously seeks to overturn a precedent of the first doping case in the world involving a male professional team sport resulting in a not guilty verdict.

Its recent investigations into doping in Russian track and field will reinforce its determination.

While a guilty verdict will satisfy WADA and ASADA, there is widespread support for a punishment that allows the Essendon players to start the 2016 season free of any sanctions.

This could be achieved by backdating the standard two-year suspension, given the duress suffered in a wrenching saga first revealed in February 2014.

CAS will hear the case in its Sydney office from Monday, setting aside five to seven days for submissions.

It is expected to announce its decision in six to eight weeks, meaning a verdict no later than mid-January.



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-ne...ada-appeal-20151111-gkw4u3.html#ixzz3rBDrfHKg
Follow us: @theage on Twitter | theageAustralia on Facebook
 

60sbomber

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Extract from Roy's article -
"...For example, CAS is expected to re-examine scientific evidence (including mass spectrometry weightings), which ASADA had argued clearly showed the substance delivered to Essendon was a perfect match for the banned thymosin-beta 4 and should have been accepted by the AFL Tribunal..."

Irrespective of what CAS thinks that the spectrometry weight establishes about the substance, it was NOT established that the substance was delivered to Essendon.
It was disputed as to whether Dank took it for testing or disposed of it because it was in clear vials and had been destroyed by exposure to light.
If CAS found, to its comfortable satisfaction, that the spectrometry weights establish that it is TB4, WADA would still have to show that Dank took it to Essendon and used it on players.
 

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efcboy

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Extract from Roy's article -
"...For example, CAS is expected to re-examine scientific evidence (including mass spectrometry weightings), which ASADA had argued clearly showed the substance delivered to Essendon was a perfect match for the banned thymosin-beta 4 and should have been accepted by the AFL Tribunal..."

Irrespective of what CAS thinks that the spectrometry weight establishes about the substance, it was NOT established that the substance was delivered to Essendon.
It was disputed as to whether Dank took it for testing or disposed of it because it was in clear vials and had been destroyed by exposure to light.
If CAS found, to its comfortable satisfaction, that the spectrometry weights establish that it is TB4, WADA would still have to show that Dank took it to Essendon and used it on players.
This article seems way off the mark. ASADA and WADA could not place the substance at EFC yet alone find it and test it. Roy must be an incompetent fool. WADA are using analysis of player samples where two players were reported to elevated levels - only two out of 34. And only elevated - not enough to clearly be considered high enough to constitute a positive.

The only thing clear in this article is that Roy is a shit journalist who can't get facts correct.
 

tesla1962

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Tests results raise doubts about WADA evidence against Essendon
THE AUSTRALIAN
NOVEMBER 14, 2015 12:00AM
Chip Le Grand


Unusually high levels of the banned peptide at the centre of the Essendon doping scandal were detected in samples randomly taken from footballers at other AFL clubs.

The test results raise serious doubts about scientific evidence the World Anti-Doping Agency will rely on when it opens its case on Monday against 34 current and former Essendon players accused of taking the banned peptide Thymosin Beta-4.

WADA earlier this year commissioned a specialist sports drug laboratory in Germany to develop a test for Thymosin Beta-4, a substance that is banned for use by athletes but occurs naturally throughout the human body. The WADA-accredited Institute of Biochemistry at the German Sports University in Cologne used the newly developed test to screen 27 samples taken from Essendon footballers during the 2012 season, when sports scientist Stephen Dank was employed at the club.

Of the 27 samples, two collected after a mid-season match against Port Adelaide showed elevated levels of Thymosin Beta-4. WADA in its submissions to the Court of Arbitration for Sport claims the results are further circumstantial evidence that Dank injected Essendon players with the banned peptide. The Weekend Australian can reveal the Cologne lab has since conducted further tests on samples taken from AFL players at other clubs with no known connection to Dank, a Queensland-born biochemist serving a life ban from sport.

Some of these samples also returned elevated readings for Thymosin Beta-4. When asked to explain these results, an analyst from the German lab suggested the footballers from other clubs must have taken the banned substance. There is no supporting evidence for this and the players are not under investigation for doping.

Another explanation is that Australian rules footballers, like other athletes, can naturally produce high levels of Thymosin Beta-4, particularly when recovering from illness or injury.

Previous studies have shown that osteoarthritis, a chronic injury common among footballers, and platelet-rich plasma therapy, an increasingly popular treatment for the condition, can both cause a spike in Thymosin Beta-4 production.

The medical histories of the two Essendon players who returned samples with elevated levels of Thymosin Beta-4 will be led as evidence in next week’s CAS hearing in Sydney.

The scientific evidence to be considered by CAS will be complex and fiercely contested. The hearing, expected to run five days, will include a “hot tub’’ evidence session, where testimony from competing scientific witnesses will be led concurrently before the three-man arbitration panel.

WADA will call University of Sydney professor of endocrinology David Handelsman as an expert witness. The 34 players will rely on the evidence of John Vine, an expert on drug testing and toxicology, and Monash University immunologist Richard Boyd, who has spent 40 years studying the thymus, the gland that secretes Thymosin Beta-4.


The Cologne test results are not crucial to WADA’s case. However, they are the only new evidence secured by WADA since the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority failed to convince an AFL tribunal that Essendon players were given a banned substance.

WADA’s case will be led by Richard Young, a US-based lawyer who drafted the original World Anti-Doping code and helped bring down notorious drug cheats Marion Jones, Floyd Landis and Lance Armstrong. Neil Clelland QC will argue the case for 32 players and David Hallowes will defend the remaining two. Of the 34 players, all but 12 have retired from the AFL or left Essendon for another club since the ill-fated 2012 season.

The AFL has submitted that due to the delay in resolving the case, any players found to have taken a banned substance should be given no effective penalty.

Dank maintains the players were given a permitted form of Thymosin peptide and not Thymosin Beta-4. He has refused to assist anti-doping investigators or provide witness testimony. He is appealing a life ban imposed by the AFL tribunal, which found him guilty of multiple doping offences while employed by Essendon and Gold Coast.

Next week’s hearing is de novo, which means CAS will rehear the entire case put to the AFL tribunal a year ago. To overturn the tribunal decision, WADA must prove to a level of “comfortable satisfaction’’ that Thymosin Beta-4 was sourced from China by convicted drug importer Shane Charter, prepared by Melbourne pharmacist Nima Alavi and injected into Essendon players by Dank.

ASADA failed on all three grounds to convince the AFL tribunal chaired by retired Victorian County Court judge David Jones. WADA believes the tribunal applied too high a standard of proof and has appealed the case to CAS as a matter of principle.

The CAS panel is comprised of British sports law guru Michael Beloff QC, former NSW Supreme Court chief justice James Spigelman QC and Romano Subiotto QC, an eminent European solicitor advocate based in Brussels. The hearing is closed to journalists and the public.
 
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84859300

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The Weekend Australian can reveal the Cologne lab has since conducted further tests on samples taken from AFL players at other clubs with no known connection to Dank, a Queensland-born biochemist serving a life ban from sport.

Some of these samples also returned elevated readings for Thymosin Beta-4. When asked to explain these results, an analyst from the German lab suggested the footballers from other clubs must have taken the banned substance. There is no supporting evidence for this and the players are not under investigation for doping.
Ok - so if my AFL history is in check (and I'm pretty sure the last few years of reading about the ASAGA have cemented this) that if any of the positive tests result in occurring with more than one player from a single club then the AFL constitute this as a doping regimen, rather than a rouge player.

If this is the case, then said club then should be investigated by an AFL task force on governance and where suspected of being guilty - penalised in breaking the AFL governance code.

Now, I'm not sure if you're all aware, but the AFL have taken some drastic steps in the past in removing teams draft picks, coercing with Federal Parliament and establishing media hate campaigns against the same people it's meant to be supporting.

I'll be interested to see how the AFL deal with these next revelations now that the same organisations they engaged to create the furore, i.e. the media, have now turned to reveal the truth - rather than select facts.
 

SydneyBomber

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I'll be interested to see how the AFL deal with these next revelations now that the same organisations they engaged to create the furore, i.e. the media, have now turned to reveal the truth - rather than select facts.
Deadly silence is deadly, and that clear air is still clear....
 
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