Jamaica haunted by drug scandal

Delano Franklyn, Guest Columnist

Our athletes, now in Moscow taking part in the World Championships, scheduled to be held from August 10-18, must be under pressure, a lot of pressure. Of the contingent of 44 athletes, 16 will be representing Jamaica at this level for the first time.

As they continue on the learning curve, they will be required to remember the strength and endurance demonstrated by those outstanding Jamaican athletes who paved the way for them.

Athletes the likes of Herb McKenley, Arthur Wint, Donald Quarrie and Merlene Ottey never had it easy in the early stages, yet they stayed the course, and are now Jamaican icons. So, too, our two main charges in Moscow, Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.

Added to the pressure of the competition which our athletes in Moscow can expect from their rivals is the pressure off the track, emanating from the challenges now being faced by some of their absent senior colleagues.

Prior to their departure to Moscow, the athletes, as did the country, suffered a major blow. A number of internationally-known athletes, including the revered Veronica Campbell-Brown, Asafa Powell and Sherone Simpson, who were all expected to do well at the championships, regrettably and unfortunately, were found to have adverse analytical findings in urine samples taken a while back.

Although not the first such findings for us as a country, the impact has created a tremor of immeasurable proportions.

Jamaica will recover, but it will require significant efforts on our part to remove an emerging perception that we did not attain the moniker 'sprint capital of the world' fairly and squarely.

No wonder the testing of all our athletes at the current World Championships has led to speculation in some quarters that our athletes have become the targets of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

The Jamaica Administrative Athletics Association (JAAA) finds itself on the back foot as it tries to explain to an apprehensive public that the recent testing of all our athletes before the start of the Worlds was mandatory, and that it had nothing to do with the recent adverse analytical findings.

Why did the JAAA keep this most vital bit of information, which it claimed it had all along, a secret? Why did it not share with the public that WADA would have been testing all athletes at the Worlds in its effort to create a biological profile of all athletes?

The release of such information, the moment it came to the attention of the JAAA, would have helped to significantly reduce the speculation which has abounded.

MANDATORY TESTING

Given that the public was not advised by the JAAA that there would be the mandatory testing of all athletes, it led many of us to wonder about the extent to which the athletes themselves were psychologically prepared for this whole-scale drug testing.

Not that our athletes are afraid of being tested. On the contrary, many of them face it quite regularly.

One of our senior athletes, for example, in reaction to the local firestorm created by the widescale testing, wrote on her Facebook page that Jamaican athletes are not afraid of being tested, and when too much is made of this particular incident, it gives the impression that they don't want to be tested, which is so far from the truth.

However, it is fair to assume that it does require a different organisational approach by the management of a team when five to 10 athletes are required to be randomly tested, as against 40-plus, at one go, as in the case of Jamaica.

Reports reaching Jamaica, from some of the athletes, are that some of them had to miss critical times set aside for training in order to undergo tests because of what appears to have been, at best, a misunderstanding between the management of the Jamaican team and the agents of WADA as to when exactly the mandatory testing would have been carried out.

Figures from JADCO

No one ought to underestimate the work of the management staff in undertaking what is a gruelling and, sometimes, thankless assignment, but it is important that everything be done to reduce the burden facing our athletes, as well as the uncertainty which hangs over the sport.

This leads me to raise, astonishingly, the difference in the figures attributed to the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO) as to the number of tests carried out in 2012.

Dr Herb Elliott, the chairman of JADCO, announced that the number of tests carried out by JADCO was 106. Ms Renée Anne Shirley, immediate past executive director of JADCO, in a letter which appeared in this paper on Wednesday, August 7, 2013, said it was 179.

Who is right and who is wrong? Depending on who is right, how could anyone so deeply connected with JADCO (Ms Shirley up to a few months ago) get the figures so wrong?

With the level of international scrutiny which our athletes are experiencing, and by extension the country, the agencies and organisations with responsibility for the sport's administration, especially an important and critical institution such as JADCO, cannot afford to unwittingly disseminate wrong information.

Whichever is the correct figure, however, JADCO must be commended for doing all that is necessary within the context of the its resources to protect the integrity of the sport.

Dr Elliott has always maintained that Jamaica has a very meticulous and efficient drug-testing programme, carried out according to WADA stipulations, and by professionals who can be compared with any other, anywhere in the world.

As hard as it is for some of us to come to terms with the revelations of the recent announcements of adverse analytical findings involving some of our idolised athletes, this has come about as a result of the work being done by JADCO, sometimes at the request of external athletic associations/federations.

Apart from continuing with its programme of testing, JADCO needs to ramp up its public education about what athletes need to do to protect the integrity of their performance.

JADCO, working hand in glove with the Inter-Secondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA), the Ministry of Education and the sports associations, must, as a matter of urgency, undertake a mass-education programme targeting our students and teachers.

The programme must be simple, consistent and relentless. To do otherwise is to underestimate what is at stake - Brand Jamaica.

We have a duty to protect Brand Jamaica. It has been rattled by recent events, but remains viable. It has taken us years to build this brand; let us not take it for granted.

As we call upon JADCO to extend its reach, let us give our athletes, coaches and officials in Moscow all the support they need, more so the younger athletes who, if they continue on their current trajectory, will be the stars of tomorrow.

Delano Franklyn is an attorney-at-law and adviser in the Office of the Prime Minister. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and delanofranklyn@cwjamaica.com.