MVP banned from Berlin?

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7

Frater reports to training camp

… but jury still out on attendance of MVP athletes

BY KAYON RAYNOR Senior staff reporter raynork@jamaicaobserver.com

Sunday, August 09, 2009

IT’S still unclear whether MVP Track Club members Asafa Powell, Shelly-Ann Fraser, Melaine Walker, Brigitte Foster-Hylton and Shericka Willams will attend Jamaica’s mandatory pre-World Championships Camp in Nuremberg, Germany.

Frater (foreground) in Nuremburg for relay practice, but it’s unclear whether Powell (background) will turn up.
The only MVP athletes to arrive on time at the training base at the Herzog Park Hotel on August 6 were Markino Buckley, Christine Day and Anneisha McLaughlin.

This reignited the controversy which rocked last year’s Jamaica Amateur Athletics Association (JAAA)-organised pre-Olympic camp in Tianjin, China.

President of the University of Technoloy (UTech)-based club, Bruce James, told the Sunday Observer yesterday that the decision as to whether the remaining athletes would turn up to the six-day camp rests with head coach Stephen Francis.

“That decision is left to the head of the MVP technical team, Stephen Francis,” James stated.

The hotel staff confirmed that 2005 world 100m silver medallist Michael Frater arrived in Nuremberg yesterday, as was promised by his agent Paul Doyle a day earlier.

Meanwhile, James believes all must be done to ensure Jamaica maximise on its full potential at these global championships.

“It’s time to put Jamaica first; not the JAAA’s first, not MVP first. Jamaica first. And to put Jamaica first, it means doing what’s in the best interest of the athletes,” James added.

On Friday Doyle - the agent of former 100m world record holder Asafa Powell, Olympic 400m silver medallist Shericka Williams and two-time world 100m hurdle medallist Brigitte Foster-Hylton - confirmed his clients would not be attending the camp.

“… They’re training in Italy and receiving treatment from the clinic there and getting their training in… and there’s no reason for them to go to the camp early, and to be honest, JAAAs has never once sent a message to me that the camp was mandatory. Only the media has been telling me that it’s mandatory,” Doyle said.

The Sunday Observer was unable to reach any member of Jamaica’s management team at the Herzog Park Hotel for an update on the situation yesterday.

On Friday, Jamaica’s head of delegation/team manager to the 12th IAAF World Championship in Berlin, Trevor ‘TC’ Campbell, shied away from confirming whether members of the MVP Track Club had indeed failed to arrive at the camp on the prescribed date.

“I can’t tell you anything else. You’ve spoken to the agent; that’s what he’s telling you… I’m not here to counter that, counteract it. I’m not here to add or subtract anything from it,” Campbell said.

As a result, the Sunday Observer was unable to ascertain whether any other athlete outside the MVP Track Club had failed to arrive at camp as mandated by the JAAA.

On June 22, JAAA president Howard Aris, who had indicated that top coaches, including Glen Mills and Francis, were consulted during the selection process for the camp venue, said he believed things would go much smoother this summer as most of the athletes will be based in Europe in the lead-up to the Championships.

“They (athletes) are due in on the sixth (of August). They will be notified the moment the team has been selected and we’ll make an announcement,” Aris said at the time.

Last summer, several MVP athletes, including Powell, did not arrive on time at the pre-Olympic camp in Tianjin, sparking discontent within the team, including a war of words between Francis and the management team.

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This goes to an area of discussion we won’t get into here, other than to say that every athlete must provide their whereabouts at all times to the IAAF and a camp is not needed for that purpose BUT it also goes into the taper discussion and what should be done.
NEVER should athletes be forced to leave their coach one day earlier than required.
NEVER should an athlete’s training be changed by another coach right before a major competition.
NEVER should relay sessions be left to the end and then athletes are sacrificed from their individual event by coaches who have never worked with them and know nothing about their training. Injuries are the inevitable result for some- just ask Fasuba and Pognon!!
The point of a training camp is to have optimal conditions in advance of the games and to ensure that jet-lag is avoided.
MVP already have a European staging area close by.
This is a power struggle and blame shifting tactic by JAAA, nothing else.

9

So why would JAAA be doing this?

I’m only a casual observer but JA is on top of the sprinting world right now, everybody is looking to them. Why would you go about shooting yourself in the foot?

10

So what’s the deal? Are they in or out? Or do I have to tune in Saturday to find out?

11

There is something fishy in all of this. Doyle claimed that he was never advised about the camp being mandatory. For argument sake let’s take it as such but then again;

This reignited the controversy which rocked last year’s Jamaica Amateur Athletics Association (JAAA)-organised pre-Olympic camp in Tianjin, China.

If they already had a similar experience with JAAA from a year ago I find it hard to believe that Francis and Doyle were absolutely unaware or unprepared for a possibility of a similar scenario, again.

If they honestly did not count that this kind of a problem would resurface again - it’s plain naive. Knowing how admin staff and bureaucrats, in general, act you would have to make sure you had it all covered and that your athletes are under optimal conditions before such a big meet.

Unreal!

12

It is fishy alright. If the JAAA had made it mandatory, it should be a simple matter for them to produce the document they sent out to all potential members and groups.
OH? You say there is no document?
But you said you notified everyone and spelled out the consequence of non-attendance?
If a policy is “spelled out”, the spelling must be on paper or in an E-mail. Hell, it could be on papyrus or written with a stylus on a clay tablet for that matter!
Where is it?
And how convenient that all this just happens to come out the same day the panel releases its decision to clear the 5 positives. When in doubt, shunt the bad news to the back pages by finding a distraction and casting aspersions on the one Jamaican group that had none of the positives.
MVP is acutely aware of training camp issues with the JAAA, which is exactly why they are doing everything to stay away from them. After all the fumbling and bumbling and confusion and favoritism you’ve just seen eminating from them, can you not see why?

13

This whole situation stinks. How could the JAAA give the all-“clear” to these athletes? Surely the IAAF must step in now, especially since JADCO has appealed against the JAAA verdict.

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And how convenient that all this just happens to come out the same day the panel releases its decision to clear the 5 positives. When in doubt, shunt the bad news to the back pages by finding a distraction and casting aspersions on the one Jamaican group that had none of the positives.
MVP is acutely aware of training camp issues with the JAAA, which is exactly why they are doing everything to stay away from them.

I see, I see. Very interesting :eek:

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Four Jamaican athletes cleared by doping panel
Tue Aug 11, 2009 7:09am IST Email | Print | Share| Single Page[-] Text [+]
By Horace Helps

KINGSTON (Reuters) - Four Jamaican athletes who tested positive for a stimulant at June’s national championships were cleared by a tribunal hearing their cases on Monday.

The panel decided the stimulant methylxanthine found in the test samples of Yohan Blake, Allodin Fothergill, Lansford Spence and Marvin Anderson was not on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) list of prohibited substances.

“Therefore the athletes were not liable under the WADA code,” Kent Gammon, chairman of the disciplinary committee of the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission, told reporters.

Gammon said the athletes ingested the stimulant in the form of capsules.

“They told the committee that they had done the checks that were necessary with the product and found that it was safe to consume,” he said.

Gammon said lawyers for the four had presented "unassailable evidence and added: “We therefore upheld submissions from the attorneys, that the athletes had no case to answer.”

The committee earlier had cleared Commonwealth Games 100 metres champion Sheri-Ann Brooks.

She also tested positive for the stimulant but the panel ruled the anti-doping commission had mishandled her second sample.

The world athletics championships begin in Berlin on Aug. 15.

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The issue in the dismissals is that JADCO says (in its appeal document released to media today) that the Montreal lab found 4-methyl-2 hexanamine in the five athletes’ samples and the JAAA panel dismissed the charges based on them having a different, more benign substance of the methylxanthines group (such as guarano or caffeine or the stuff they stick into RedBull drinks)…

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August 10, 2009

Asafa’s coach Francis hits back
1,628 views at TrackAlerts

Kingston – World-renowned track and field coach Stephen Francis is convinced the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association (JAAA) is out to sabotage him and the success of his athletes.

On Monday, reports surfaced that five MVP athletes, former world 100m record holder Asafa Powell, Olympics Games champions Shelly-Ann Fraser (100m) and Melaine Walker (400m hurdles), Shericka Williams, winner of the Olympics 400m silver medal, and national 100m hur-dles record holder Brigitte Foster-Hylton, all coached by Francis, have been dropped from Jamaica’s World Championships team because they failed to report for last Thursday’s mandatory training camp in Nuremberg, Germany.

It was to this that [b]Francis responded.
“I am convinced that the job of the JAAA executive, most of them, is to try sabotage me and the success that I have with my athletes,” he said in an interview with Irie FM.

“I think that everything they do, they designed to do it and I have to be very, very wary of what they do,” he continued.[/b]

When contacted, President of the JAAA, Howard Aris was asked about Francis’ comments and about the possibility of the organisation working against a particular coach. “Certainly not,” said Aris.

“I don’t see why they look at a coach of my reputation and want to tell me how to prepare my athletes. What right do they have to tell me how to prepare my athletes,” Francis snapped.

The coach explained the reason behind his decision not to attend the pre-World Championships camp.

[b]“Every time they come up with a camp so far, they have chosen a very inferior location. This one, for example, has no weights room, the track has no hurdles or other requirements,” he said.

According to Francis, hurdlers would have “to walk down the road to an old track to practise”.
[/b]

Jamaica’s technical director, Donald Quarrie, could not be reached to comment on the facility in Nuremberg.

[b]Francis’ athletes, minus Michael Frater, Anneisha McLaughlin, Christine Day and Markino Buckley, who are already in the camp, were given up to noon yesterday to report or face being dropped from the team.

But up to press time, there was no indication as to whether the athletes had joined the camp.[/b]

The group’s original plan was to head straight into the team’s village in Berlin today.

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http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/jamaica-in-drugs-backflip/story-e6frexni-1225760382841

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http://www.sportinglife.com/others/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=others/09/08/11/ATHLETICS_Jamaica.html

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According to the website of the German athletics association (http://www.leichtathletik.de/index.php?NavID=1&SiteID=28&NewsID=23868), IAAF general secretary Pierre Weiss has confirmed that Jamaica has asked for the names of the six MVP athletes to be removed from the starting lists. The IAAF has asked them to clarify the situation, but if the decision is not reversed by Thursday 12pm Asafa and co are out.

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These guys are real beauts. In their endless quest for self-promotion, power,etc, the JAAA will bring this house of cards down- mark my words.

22

Looks like it was just empty gestures afterall:
http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/display_article.php?id=34960

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I hope you’re right because I can imagine the direction the recriminations would take if this was carried out. I also wonder if the IAAF went after them to straighten this mess out without damaging the WCs in the process.

24

Now there is a further report that a joing JAAA, IAAF press conference will be held to announce the MVP ban.
This brings up the question, along the lines of the whole using MVP as a distraction theory: What does the IAAF have to hold over the JAAA to force them to toe the line, if anything?
If the IAAF does NOT have any additional cards, I could easily see the JAAA carrying out their threat.
In nature, poison snakes don’t bite each other because of the dire consequences but the JAAA are itching to take that first bite.

25

This is just a great way to promote T&F. Let’s hope that at least Bolt doesn’t get thrown under as well, since that would really be the worst blow the sport has ever taken, I could imagine. Not even sure if it would be able to recover for another 20 years.

26

If the sport must rely on the good graces of Jamaican federation… well good luck.
It does appear that the reinstatement story is holding and another wrinkle is that the Jamaican Sport Minister is on the way to mediate. JAAA may be getting pressure from two directions but we still don’t know if there is another shoe to drop which caused them to seek this distraction in the first place.