Dwaine Chambers

[Etienne]

Dwaine Chambers

Was it 3 successive tests that Ohorogou missed?

I remember reading at the time that there were an awful lot of athlets with 2 missed tests.

[Guest]

Dwaine Chambers

No, one in late 2005 and two more in the space of a month in the summer of 2006.

Not that it should particularly matter if the three missed tests occur in an unbroken sequence or whether they are spaced a year apart or whatever. Missing one test can, potentially, be ascribed to haphazard circumstances on the day, if the person concerned has a good excuse. Missing two is really, really pushing it. Missing three of them in ten months spells out fairly clearly that this particular professional athlete does not like doing drug tests.

[Commodore]

Dwaine Chambers

I tend to get prickly when it comes to an assumption of guilt on the part of athletes; just because Marion Jones managed to remain undetected does not mean that every athlete who has not tested positive has somehow got away with it.

Track & Field has done more to tackle the issue face on than any other sport, yet it gets vilified by the media to the point that it seems that unless your name happens to be Paula Radcliffe every athlete should test positive for something sooner or later, or have something to hide whenever they miss a test.

While Ohurougu is the most high profile athlete to have been banned for missing three tests in a row, there have been other British athletes who have come mightily close to a similar suspension. This is because of the random testing process athletes do not actually know when they are going to be tested in order to keep an element of surprise about the whole process. So testers ask athletes to specify an hour each day for five days on a particular week when they will be available for a random drugs test.

In Ohurougu’s case, two of those missed tests coincided with her usual training venue being used for local schools competitions, which meant that Ohurougu had to train elsewhere at short notice. Even though she had just won Commonwealth Gold where she beat the reigning Olympic champion Tonique Williams-Darling she was not considered to be an elite athlete. It was only when she won the World title that she was afforded such status. This now means that she is free to train at a facility that is exclusively for the use of professional athletes, which means that missing a test due to inaccessibility is no longer an excuse.

Furthermore, at the time that Ohurougu was given her reprieve when it came to competing in the Olympics back in November she had been tested 14 times, each time with a negative result. This was 14 times more than Marita Koch, the woman who has held the women’s 400m World Record since 1985 at 47.6 seconds, still 2 seconds quicker than Ohurougu’s personal best.

I’m not pleading Ohurougu’s innocence here. She broke the rules and she was punished. And thanks to the high profile she has acquired as a result of her success on the track then she has absolutely no room for manoeuvre. But it would be nice if athletes were at least innocent until proven guilty – even Marion Jones was caught in the end.

And citing other cases that have no bearing on Ohurougu’s is not only wrong, but also ignorant. In fact, I’m irked that I have to make this point on a topic related to Dwain Chambers as these two cases have nothing in common save for an appeal to have their Olympic bans overturned. But it needed to be said.

[Guest]

Dwaine Chambers

ykikamoocow wrote:

I tend to get prickly when it comes to an assumption of guilt on the part of athletes; just because Marion Jones managed to remain undetected does not mean that every athlete who has not tested positive has somehow got away with it.

Hold on a second, I didn't say that -- or anything like it.

I'm saying that if people are going to try to use "she's never failed a test" as proof of her innocence, it needs to be pointed out that it's hardly unheard of for athletes to go their entire career without testing positive, only to get nabbed by other means later on. It is not exactly a watertight defence.

And if you miss three tests -- two in the same month -- it doesn't merely look bad, it looks shocking, new training venue or no new training venue. The whole point of drug tests is that they can spring them on you at any time, otherwise it would be easy for drug-taking athletes to simply plan their schedule accordingly to ensure they didn't get caught.

There's been a real whiff of "She's British, she couldn't be on drugs" about the coverage of this whole thing in the British press. Understandable, perhaps, but it doesn't mean the rest of us have to buy it.

[Brandenburger Toro]

Dwaine Chambers

Track & Field has done more to tackle the issue face on than any other sport,

[Commodore]

Dwaine Chambers

I’m trying really hard to see what Ohurougu had to gain from deliberately missing those tests.

She may have avoided a lengthier ban but at the time she was suspended it was made clear to her that while this was a minor doping offence she was still subject to a lifetime Olympic ban. Ohurougu could not have been confident of getting this particular decision overturned especially as the coverage at the time the suspension was announced was significantly more negative than if she had actually failed a test.

If such a case had happened to other athletes, one might suggest that there was a pattern here. Miss the tests, do your time, come back in a blaze of glory and the BOA might let you off. But Ohurougu’s case was unprecedented, and to my knowledge has not been repeated since.

If we consider the possibility that Ohurougu had something to hide that led her to miss those tests, then at 24 and with a potentially long career ahead of her how on earth is she supposed to avoid detection in the future? If banned substances had got her to the level of being a genuine gold medal prospect, then how is she expected to maintain that form over the next few years without those same substances, considering that she won’t be able to pull the same stunt of missing tests again in the future?

It matters not to me that Ohurougu is British (although I agree with H of H that it clearly does to the same media who called her for all sorts two years ago). An athlete’s career is desperately short, too short for it to be cut short as a result of speculation. Only time will tell if the decision to let her compete in the Olympics was justified. So give her time.