Bombertalk

And [Charter] again defended one of his former clients, Essendon coach James Hird - a key figure in the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority probe into the Bombers' 2012 supplements program.
"These people aren't associated with performance-enhancing drugs," Charter said in a reference to Hird. "He's the opposite; he's against anything that would affect the player, the credibility of the industry. Certainly James Hird would not go anywhere near that."

Essendon's former fitness coach, Stuart Cormack, also featured in the broad-ranging program that investigated the use of performance-enhancing drugs across many sports in Australia. Cormack said he disagreed with the acceleration of Essendon's fitness program, but said the methods were above board.
"There was certainly a desire to, you know, get the athletes bigger and stronger fairly quickly but … there was never a suggestion from anyone that that would involve … practices that I wasn't comfortable with from a legal perspective,'' he said.

billyduckworth wrote:I watched a fair bit of the program. It seemed to me to reinforce what I already thought:

(a) that ASADA are a bunch of amateurs and bunglers that spend years investigating people but very seldom find anything
(b) that the government panicked or tried to make mileage out of it in its "darkest days" press conference but now have lots of egg on their faces, because when all is said and done, they can't prove anything
(c) statements from Chartres (or whatever his name is), Cormack, Dank etc. all say Hird was insistent that they stay WITHIN the guidelines
(d) many of the guidelines are confusing and/or make very little sense

What a mess....

BenDoolan wrote:There's one thing that stood out for me in that program. If the anti doping agencies don't know if certain substances are banned or not, how are the players supposed to know?

WADA declares obesity drug illegal
DateApril 23, 2013 - 10:05AM 775 reading now(774)
Read laterRichard Baker and Nick McKenzieZoom in on this story. Explore all there is to know.

AFL NRL Essendon ..

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/w ... z2RFXvHymk

[Dank] said he believed the substance complied with anti-doping regulations at the time. Essendon is also believed to have received advice from anti-doping authorities last year that suggested the use of AOD-9604 was permitted.

j-mac31 wrote:

[Dank] said he believed the substance complied with anti-doping regulations at the time. Essendon is also believed to have received advice from anti-doping authorities last year that suggested the use of AOD-9604 was permitted.

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/w ... z2RGCiyilp

Surely they can't actually retrospectively punish players for something that wasn't banned at the time?

BenDoolan wrote:

j-mac31 wrote:

[Dank] said he believed the substance complied with anti-doping regulations at the time. Essendon is also believed to have received advice from anti-doping authorities last year that suggested the use of AOD-9604 was permitted.

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/w ... z2RGCiyilp

Surely they can't actually retrospectively punish players for something that wasn't banned at the time?

It was banned at the time and it may appear that ASADA have given us the wrong advice. Either way were f***** I believe.

rockhole wrote:

BenDoolan wrote:

j-mac31 wrote:

[Dank] said he believed the substance complied with anti-doping regulations at the time. Essendon is also believed to have received advice from anti-doping authorities last year that suggested the use of AOD-9604 was permitted.

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/w ... z2RGCiyilp

Surely they can't actually retrospectively punish players for something that wasn't banned at the time?

It was banned at the time and it may appear that ASADA have given us the wrong advice. Either way were f***** I believe.

From the Sun's website:

"
It is alleged anti-obesity drug AOD-9604, which has not been cleared for human use, was administered to at least six Essendon players last year by controversial sports scientist Stephen Dank.

Confusion has surrounded the status of the growth hormone with the Australian Crime Commission stating in its Drugs in Sport report that the drug was not yet banned"

Two questions arise from this.

1. It still comes down to Dank's word against everyone else.

2. Is ASADA indulging in a bit of "retrospectivity" when the ACC stated quite clearly that the drug was not yet banned.

I detect some more arse covering in the air and the term "amateur hour" is starting to form in my tiny brain.

BenDoolan wrote:[Don't understand what the ACC has to do with the status of a particular drug in sport. I thought WADA was the authority on it....

s'dreams wrote:

BenDoolan wrote:[Don't understand what the ACC has to do with the status of a particular drug in sport. I thought WADA was the authority on it....

1. Debatable whether ASADA/WADA is the authority given the Keystone Kops behaviour
2. ACC is driving a lot of this hoo haa around the investigation - political [s]interference[/s] guidence anyone?

s'd

BenDoolan wrote:

s'dreams wrote:

BenDoolan wrote:[Don't understand what the ACC has to do with the status of a particular drug in sport. I thought WADA was the authority on it....

1. Debatable whether ASADA/WADA is the authority given the Keystone Kops behaviour
2. ACC is driving a lot of this hoo haa around the investigation - political [s]interference[/s] guidence anyone?

s'd

I think WADA has been pretty clear. It's ASADA that's been shoddy. If they had previously given the thumbs up on a substance that is classified as banned under the WADA code, then I am not comfortable with ASADA conducting this investigation. If they had given us permission (and that is the claim), then ASADA themselves need to be investigated to determine their involvement in this whole saga.

It's like a police officer giving you directions to proceed through an intersection and then stopping you for failing to obey a traffic signal. Seems f***** up to me...

Sartorius wrote:Agree, and this is probably a reason why we brought about the ziggy investigation. If he finds information that asada ticked off that we could use aod (and there should always be written evidence when doing these sorts of things) then they have something to answer for and not us. The longer this goes on the more asada is coming across as incompetent.

auditor wrote:Everything that has come out over the last couple of weeks e.g Melbourne players and Dank, Monday nights revelations from Charter on 4 corners etc. has really muddied the already muddy waters in this whole sorry issue.

At the end of the day and in my opinion the whole system sucks from the governance at Essendon to the incompetence of the ACC, AFL and ASADA.
I feel any punishment handed out will be along the lines of massive fines and mild suspensions if any.

What has happened must be used as a watershed event and all should learn from it. It clearly indicates flaws in all systems related to Drugs in our game and any attempt by ASADA or the AFL in sanctioning Essendon heavily will obviously meet heavy resistance via the Bombers lawyers.

It could get ugly but it doesn’t have to be that way. As long as everybody accepts that the flaws in the system as a whole are to blame them it should be quite easy to put in place what has sadly been missing, Professionalism and Accountability.