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)…
August 10, 2009
Asafa’s coach Francis hits back
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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.
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.
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.
Looks like it was just empty gestures afterall:
http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/display_article.php?id=34960
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.
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.
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.
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.
Jamaica athletes handed reprieve
(UKPA) – 47 minutes ago
Jamaican athletes who failed to attend a preparation camp last week in Germany will be allowed to compete at the World Championships beginning in Berlin on Saturday.
The Jamaican federation withdrew a request for them to be excluded following the personal intervention of IAAF president Lamine Diack.
Diack agreed it was the right of the national body to punish the athletes - which included former world 100m record holder Asafa Powell and Olympic 100m and 400m hurdles champions Shelly-Ann Fraser and Melanie Walker - but he successfully argued that throwing them out of the championships was too strong a punishment.
Diack suggested other action be taken by the Jamaican federation if it is deemed necessary.
The trio are members of the MVP track club, which elected to stay at its base in Italy rather than join the remainder of the team in Nuremberg.
Paul Doyle, who manages Powell, maintains he had been told attending the camp in Germany was not a compulsory requirement.
Meanwhile, the IAAF has still to receive documentation about the five Jamaican athletes who allegedly committed drug offences at the National Trials in June.
The Jamaican Federation has yet to comment publicly on the outcome of their trials, which ended last Friday.
Copyright © 2009 The Press Association. All rights reserved.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5j6hask06oUYeUlErFH_rvABSMJHg
Asafa has already announced that this situation has hampered his chances of being successful in Berlin. This reminds me of Beijing where he stated before the start of the heats that the multiple blood samples he had to give had weakened him. Seems like he’s developing a habit of explaining his failures before they even occur.
Always gotta have an escape plan, even if it is or isnt legit.
The Lord will rescue him.
Can we call it what it plainly is: The iaaf is worried that in banning the MVP group, public suspicion will be that JAAA had ulterior motives and that majority conclusion will be that MVP were involved in things (the topic of which is frowned upon on this forum) that even the JAAA could not tolerate - and that’s bearing in mind that the JAAA has just let five positives run off scott free. But this event is not a sprint…it may take months to unravel and there will be a pause in proceedings while the Berlin championships are on, but then things will get very ugly as either conspiracy or incompetence or perhaps even both are unmasked at JAAA.
August 12, 2009
Email This Post Print This Post UPDATED: Jamaica withdraws request to exclude Asafa Powell and 5 teammates
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BERLIN — Jamaica has withdrawn its request to ban sprint star Asafa Powell and his teammates from the track world championships.
IAAF general secretary Pierre Weiss says track’s governing body pressured the federation to change its mind because the exclusion of the six prominent athletes would reflect badly on the championship.
The Jamaican athletics federation has been in a dispute with the athletes after they missed a mandatory training camp for the worlds last week.
Weiss said Wednesday that “we asked Jamaica to reconsider in the interest of sport.”
The championships start Saturday.
Earlier, Olympic Games 100m champion Shelly-Ann Fraser and 400m hurdles winner Melaine Walker, along with former world 100m record holder Asafa Powel, IAAF general secretary Pierre Weiss has confirmed, were asked by Jamaica to be removed from the team to compete at World Championships.
Weiss says the request was made Wednesday but didn’t disclose a reason.
Another senior IAAF source said they had gotten to request verbally, but made it clear it has to come in writing.
“They were told to put it in writing before it (request) can be granted,” the IAAF source said.
The Jamaican athletics federation has been in a dispute with several athletes over a mandatory training camp, which MVP athletes skipped last week.
The athletes were identified as Fraser, Walker, hurdler Brigitte Foster-Hylton and Olympics 400m silver medalist Shericka Williams.
The request could be rescinded because the final entry list has to be with organizers 48 hours before the opening event.
Earlier this week, coach of the athletes, Stephen Francis is convinced the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association (JAAA) is out to sabotage him and the success of his athletes.
“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.
“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.
Jamaica changes mind on Powell, teammates
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August 13, 2009 - 9:25AM
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Jamaica withdrew its request to ban sprint star Asafa Powell and several teammates from the athletics world championships, just hours after saying they would be kicked off the team in a dispute over training camp attendance.
IAAF secretary general Pierre Weiss said the world governing body put pressure on the Jamaican federation to change its mind because the exclusion of the six prominent athletes would reflect badly on the championship itself.
“We asked Jamaica to reconsider in the interest of sport,” Weiss said.
The Jamaican federation has been in a dispute with the athletes after they missed a mandatory training camp for the worlds last week, and said similar issues have plagued the team in recent years.
Federation officials said after reversing the decision that the athletes could face possible sanctions after the championships instead.
The worlds begin on Saturday with a program that includes the opening heat of the 100 metres, where Powell is a medal contender behind fellow Jamaican and Olympic champion Usain Bolt and defending world champion Tyson Gay.
“We are all relieved to have that news,” said Paul Doyle, the manager of five of the athletes. “It was all very unnecessary.”
The decision ended a tumultuous day at the IAAF Congress, where the initial announcement that Powell, Olympic champions Melaine Walker and Shelly-Ann Fraser and three others would be excluded created an uproar.
“We didn’t like it,” Weiss said, adding that it was the IAAF’s job to make sure nations field as strong teams as possible. “The world championships, that is our baby. We take care of our baby.”
The controversy stems from the athletes’ decision to skip a training camp for the worlds last week in Nuremberg.
Doyle said his athletes had already set up their own preparations in Italy by the time they were notified of the training camp.
“None of us received official notice it was supposed to be mandatory,” Doyle said. “It was not fair to treat the athletes this way.”
Jamaica’s technical director Don Quarrie said training camp attendance has been an issue for years, and that the federation was only asking for basic cooperation from the athletes.
“You come to training camp, get the morale of the team together, get relay practices,” Quarrie told The Associated Press. “And also, we need to know whether someone is injured. There are some people who think they don’t have to abide by those rules. To be honest with you, it is not really sometimes the athletes, but the people behind the athletes.”
He said a similar dispute had soured the mood ahead of the Olympics last year, “and before that too. It reached a point where they flatly ignored our request to come to camp.”
AP
Yes. This will get uglier. I was reading local Jamaican commentary and was appalled by the utter lack of grasp of the real issues by the general public.
There is a theme in the letters that discipline is required in Jamaican society and therefor MVP athletes should be thrown out.
Not one letter pointed out that the discipline argument applies to the JAAA first and foremost, as they are responsible to create a successful training environment for ALL members, not just those they favor!
Not one letter that I saw so far pointed out that the motivation for this conflict, started by the JAAA, was to divert attention away from the “earlier news” affecting the favored groups.
JAAA did not back down under duress - Aris says management report will dictate next move against MVP athletesPublished: Friday | August 14, 2009
Elton Tucker, Assistant Editor - Sports : The Gleaner newspaper
BERLIN, Germany
President of the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association (JAAA), Howard Aris, said yesterday that his association will await a report from the management of the team here in Berlin before deciding if any action will be taken against the athletes who missed a mandatory World Championships training camp in Nuremberg.
Aris said a three-member disciplinary panel, chaired by retired chief justice Lensley Wolfe, has been in place since January to deal with matters such as the one which has arisen. The other members of the panel are attorney-at-law Winston Spaulding and Major General John Simmonds.
He added, however, that a process had to be followed.
“The team management must make a report to the executive of the association. I can’t anticipate what the reports (which covers matters like accommodation, travel arrangements, performances) will say but in the event that there is need for anyone to appear, the panel is there and ready.”
The JAAA president was responding to questions at a hastily arranged press conference to clear the air on the move by the association to backtrack on a decision to withdraw six athletes from the MVP Track Club from the 12th World Championships in Athletics which starts here tomorrow.
Aris said it was only after the intervention of the president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), Lamine Diack, that the JAAA decided to rethink its decision. He was, however, quick to point out that the JAAA did not act under duress or coercion.
“President Diack made it very, very clear that he had no authority … to tell us as an association what to do. He wanted us to look at some of the issues … and to look at the total picture. He felt that Jamaica was a critical player in track and field at this time and therefore we should look at not only our own position but the position which we hold in world athletics.”
Aris was at pains to point out that President Diack understood that if the JAAA had rules and there were athletes not abiding by these rules then the national body had a right to act.
“What the IAAF said to us is that we are not telling you how to manage your affairs … but they asked us not to use the World Championships as punishment for breaking those rules.”
Losing respect
The JAAA president said Diack, based on his personal intervention, went to the team hotel and spoke with the entire delegation - athletes, management and coaching staff - to explain his actions and to bring the authority of his office so that “the JAAA would not be seen as an organisation reneging on its own rules one, and two, possibly losing the respect of the management staff.”
The IAAF had acted just in time to prevent the axing of the athletes.
A source close to the JAAA said the six members of the MVP Track Club, including former world 100 metres record holder Asafa Powell, Olympic 100m champion Shelly-Ann Fraser, 400m hurdles champion Melaine Walker and 400 metres silver medallist Shericka Williams, “were just five minutes away” from having their accreditations withdrawn when the IAAF intervened.
Meanwhile, the fate of four of the athletes who were cleared of a doping offence by the Jamaica Anti-Doping Committee’s disciplinary panel over the past week remains in doubt.
Final decision
An IAAF spokesman told The Gleaner yesterday that they had only just (yesterday) received documents on the case from Jamaica and were studying them and a final decision will be made today on the eve of the start of the championships.
Marvin Anderson, Allodin Fothergill, Lansford Spence and Yohan Blake were cleared on Monday, and Sheri-Ann Brooks a week ago.
Anderson is injured and will not run at the championships, but the remaining four are still on the team.
Brooks is entered for the 100m and Forthergill and Spence for the 400m. Blake is a member of the sprint relay squad.
Aris said he, too, was not sure if the athletes could compete but reminded his audience that Pierre Weiss, secretary general of the IAAF, reiterated at a news briefing on Wednesday that as of now the athletes are on the team and until they are taken off they are on the team.