Should MSF or WOWSA rules not allow swimmers banned for doping?

This past weekend Morgan Chaffin was 2nd at the Swim Around Key West. She is also serving a 2-year competition ban for testosterone use.

Now, the Swim Around Key West was not sanctioned by WOWSA, nor did it profess to be following MSF rules; so it isn't relevant for this particular race right now. But it will be, and before we realize.

We are in the midst of another round of amateur endurance athletes being banned by USADA. This investigation is around a group of people buying EPO from overseas, there have been previous investigations into similar actions and also other investigations of athletes who use "anti aging clinics." So some day soon, this will come up for a WOWSA sanctioned swim or swim following MSF rules.

If you don't know already, no matter what sport you are participating in when you are banned, you are also banned from all other sports who have signed the World Anti Doping Code. So if you are a triathlete and are banned for testosterone use, you are also banned from USMS competitions. If you are a cyclist and are banned for doping, you can't participate in a USA Track and Field sanctioned 10k.

The questions I am asking is whether WOWSA or MSF rules should voluntarily adhere to the same rule?

Leonard_JansenJenA

Comments

  • Leonard_JansenLeonard_Jansen Charter Member

    It seems to me that the problem is that if you DON'T adhere to the same rule, you potentially end up painting everyone in the sport with the broad brush labeled "drug user." This could occur in two ways:
    1) The "birds of a feather" argument: Since they allow banned athletes to compete, they must be OK with PED use. If they are OK with PED use, I bet lots of them also use PEDS. Also, notice that they don't have drug testing in marathon swimming events.
    2) The "convicted by excellence" argument: Person X beat Person Y in that swim and Person Y is a convicted PED user, therefore Person X must also be a PED user or else (s)he could never beat Person Y.

    Full disclosure caveat regarding my opinions on this topic: Keep in mind that I do use low-dose Adderall as a medically necessary drug.

    -LBJ

    “Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.” - Oscar Wilde

  • loneswimmerloneswimmer IrelandCharter Member
    edited June 2015

    Context: I've mentioned before I used to cycle competitively (amateur). It's the only professional sport I ever followed. I completely abandoned interest the sport in the 90s due the abuse of PEDs. (Tangentially I was obsessed with hoping Lance Armstrong would be caught for most of that time). And there isn't a single pro sport that I trust isn't riddled with drugs including swimming.

    I am overwhelmingly in favour of lifetime bans for any proven PED abuse. I would love to add a total ban in the MSF rules.

    However, let me play Devil's Advocate.MSF is essentially a few people doing this for fun (or whatever is left of fun). In V1.0 of the MSF rules we had a discussion where making an observer responsible for checking watches being used for GPS or other assisting technology was considered an unreasonable burden on the observer. I would be concerned that adding the suggested PED clause added an unreasonable burden to MSF or amateur swim organisations to check or police.

    Let's say that the Sandycove Challenge officially adopted MSF rules. ~300 swimmers do the swim. Who checks them with WADA? SISC? MSF? "Ok", you say, "forget the check, just ban people afterwards if there's a known case". Same problem Who decides? Does MSF become an affiliate of WADA? Does SISC? If you can propose a workable solution to this burden, then great.

    But it's an amateur sport. That means most of us are just having fun. But a few people such as She Who Must Not Be Named (and I finally called Darren Jaundrill out on Twitter as a fraud last week and I'm writing it here now also) abuse the amateur nature for self promotional aspects. The same must be true for PEDs. Comme si, comme sa.

    A unenforceable rule is a useless rule, IMO.

    {My disclosure is I have used coffee specifically as a performance enhancing aid. As have most of you. And I once convinced DNOWS that coffee was being banned by WADA. :-) }

    loneswimmer.com

  • Kevin_in_MDKevin_in_MD Senior Member

    I'll check your Sandycove list against the current UK banned list, pretty easy in excel, just send them over!

    Couldn't you have the applicant for the documented swim send his country's current banned list with the other documentation.

    I understand there are difficulties, but we get worked up about not touching the feeding pole, or men using suits that come above the navel - but we have no rules on doping which is at least as impactful as those things, or could be.

    So by no means should you grab the feeding pole so you can relax while you defecate, that's sacrilege; but hey banned for EPO, no we don't care about that. Seems like we are missing something.

    And by "we" I mean as a larger open water community.

    slknight
  • msathletemsathlete Victoria, British Colubia, CanadaMember

    There is a similar thread here: http://marathonswimmers.org/forum/discussion/comment/17188/#Comment_17188

    I think this is a complex issue. I have done everything I can to NOT use the myriad of drugs prescribed to people with Multiple Sclerosis and will continue to do so. I recognize however that there may come a time when I have to take steroids or some other concoction to minimize the permanent damage an attack may have. Should I be excluded from an event or banned from the sport because of this? I hope not.

    If MSF is to adhere to this rule I would hope that exemptions be granted for those who require them.

  • david_barradavid_barra NYCharter Member

    Neither org has the resources to check athletes for banned substances

    loneswimmertimsroot

    ...anything worth doing is worth overdoing.

  • Kevin_in_MDKevin_in_MD Senior Member

    david_barra said:
    Neither org has the resources to check athletes for banned substances

    I understand that, but what about when they were already found to be dopers by other organizations?

  • Kevin_in_MDKevin_in_MD Senior Member

    msathlete said:

    there may come a time when I have to take steroids or some other concoction to minimize the permanent damage an attack may have. Should I be excluded from an event or banned from the sport because of this? I hope not.

    The issue of doping as a whole is complex, but this situation really isn't; a person has been found to be a doper and is serving a two year competition ban. Should she be allowed to take part in WOWSA sanctioned or MSF recorded events?

    As for MS and steroids, corticosteroids are only banned in competition and there is a Thrapeutic Use Exemption process that would apply to people who need them such as yourself.

  • swimmer25kswimmer25k Charter Member

    What about a solo swim following MSF Rules? Will the swimmer have to submit lab results showing that they're clean? Who's pee/blood was tested anyway? Unless there is some kind of finding by WADA/USADA, etc to back a ban or non-ratification this could be a huge can of worms. Stick with an honor system like golf? Marathon swimming outside of FINA is essentially a hobby. It's a ridiculous notion to me that people would go through the effort to cheat.

  • IronMikeIronMike Northern VirginiaCharter Member
    edited June 2015

    Seems there are two questions here: testing people who have just finished a swim, and checking names against a list of already caught users.

    I don't think MSF should be in the business of employing meat gazers (military slang...sorry) and labs to check swimmers after they've completed an MSF-rules-following swim.

    Now, checking individuals against a list provided by WADA...I'm open to discussion about that.

    We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams

  • danswimsdanswims Portland, ORMember
    edited June 2015

    IronMike said:
    Seems there are two questions here: testing people who have just finished a swim, and checking names against a list of already caught users.

    More than two questions, I'll add #3. Out of competition PED use. EPO would look to be the go to PED for endurance athletes because bumping up hemoglobin levels conveys obvious endurance benefits. It has a short half life therefore testing after a swim is completely useless. Various steroids can enhance recovery after a hard workout making back to back intense training possible, some of these can be well out of the system by the event itself. Human Growth Hormone apparently conveys benefits in training cycles, again difficult to impossible to detect the use of in a post swim test. All of these are drugs used in the build up to an event, but not during the event itself. Thinking about PEDs as something one takes day of a given event is naive and outdated, it is a far more sophisticated situation.

    If someone chooses to cheat with drugs they can probably manage to do it without detection. Look at how long it took them to catch Lance Armstrong and company, even with extensive in and out of competition testing. The flip side is that there are swimmers on this forum that have publicly stated using medically necessary meds that in say a FINA sanctioned event if they were tested would face sanctions unless they had applied for and been granted a medical exception. This is a complicated rabbit hole.

  • Kevin_in_MDKevin_in_MD Senior Member

    Blood testing whether in competition or out of competition seems to be a bridge too far for the community right now in terms of money and logistics.

  • Kevin_in_MDKevin_in_MD Senior Member

    swimmer25k said:
    What about a solo swim following MSF Rules? Will the swimmer have to submit lab results showing that they're clean? ... It's a ridiculous notion to me that people would go through the effort to cheat.

    I'd propose that the solo swimmer froward the current list of his country's banned list and the internet link to it. For developed countries this would be easy to do.

    As for ridiculous to cheat, well it's ridiculous to me too but we've already had a user here admit that his brother dopes for cycling races that are simply a hobby to him. The 40+ and 50+ triathletes getting busted for epo and testosterone are only doing it as a hobby. The guy busted at the Gran Fondo New York was a hobby cyclist as well.

    Our sport isn't so different from cycling and triathlon to think that while about a dozen men and women pursuing those hobbies have been popped for doping (and they don't really look that hard), no one in marathon swimming is doping.

  • EricEric Member
    edited June 2015

    The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced today that it had retroactively disqualified Olga Beresnyeva from the 2012 Olympic Games in London, and annulled her seventh-place finish in the 10K open water race. Beresnyeva tested positive in March, 2015, for the presence of recombinant erythropoietin (rEPO) in a new analysis of the samples she provided in 2012. SwimSwam

  • HollyTHollyT Member

    It's a tough call especially when you look at things like solo swims and the fact that there really is not a lot of money/sponsership riding on Marathon swims, so the temptation to dope "should" be less. HOWEVER...it's obviously occurring on occasion. The damage it causes to the body is incredible, and quite long lasting, so that is the "reward"

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