Unless you have a precedent, cases that have met the challenge of getting through a legal battle, there is often a reluctance to prosecute a case where the science shows a doping violation but the law may not allow a sanction to be imposed for that offense.

James Ferstle

Categorized in : Sports

There are those who have been allowed to compete even though they should be provisionally suspended, there are loopholes in the different segments of the sports world where you can be banned by some groups and still compete in others.

It does not happen overnight, while funding for WADA and other national anti-doping organizations has increased, it is still not adequate to deal with the problem.

Don Catlin, one of the pioneers in sports drug testing told me back in the '70s that for each positive drug test, the athlete who was busted was not a triumph for the anti-doping movement, but rather a failure of the system, the system had not convinced those who give in to the temptation that doping was not an attractive option.

The culture needs to favor the clean athletes rather than the win-at-all costs mentality that has the upper hand today, unless we do change the culture, there will continue to be scandals.