Doping and human rights

[FR Drew]

If you were to go on a talent quest where you sang (say a pub karaoke night) would you be willing to give that pub exclusive rights to any potential music gig you might get for years into the future? Probably not. If you went on Australian Idol, you can bet your balls that every single contestant has their potential future rights locked up by the ten network tighter than a fishes ring gear.

What's the difference? You say you want to compete in the TdF or any other elite level cycling comp then they set the rules under which you have to compete. You don't like it? Fine, then choose not to compete, but if it's the only game in town that'll give you the kudos you seek then don't come bleating when they impose certain conditions on you, irrespective of if they'd be appropriate for the general populous. It comes with the territory. Deal with it or get out. Your choice.

I'm sooooo sick of elite level athletes getting paid bucketloads who bleat about how "unfair" the conditions are that they have to compete under.

Hell, I think that getting paid half a million bucks to play 20 friggen games of footy is pretty freaking unfair when I work all year to earn 60k too. Deal with it.

You choose to enter the elite level then you check your rights at the door and you agree to the conditions set by the sports governing body. End of story.

[DaGonz]

I don't see any difference when a cop breaks the law to get evidence to convict someone. Even if the evidence is true and the accused is guilty there are good reasons why the evidence should not be allowed in a court of law.

The examples I threw out there were just fictional scenarios that I don't think are completely unrealistic. If the UCI gets away with breaching peoples human rights now, then what happens in 5 years time when there are still people getting busted for cheating and there's a call for harsher testing controls?
....

Or maybe he'd be happy if the evidence gathered against him was obtained legally?

Yeah ok... I can see your point. My feelings on it still stand though.

The other thing where this becomes really sticky is, to the best of my knowledge, the WADA and appropriate subsiduaries (ASADA etc... ) are not legally binding courts and are not subject to the same evidence legislation as a real court would be (as was clearly evident in the Floyd Landis arbitration and somewhat in the Mayo situation). The fines, penalties etc... handed down by the appropriate anti doping agencies are done so under the contract you signed when you signed your licence. Which is why there is CAS, an actual Court which is effectively there to determine whether each party has fulfilled their side of the contract appropriately

That is more my concern on civil liberty than having to be tested randomly on your holiday, that UCI/WADA/Whoever can go on a witch hunt, run tests on your sample till they get the results they want, fumble simple evidence handling etc... and still present it as evidence against you. Mayo's B sample was tested at two independant labs and was found clean. Process has been run, drop it! In a real court, Flandis's A sample would never have made it to the bench.

As an athlete, the odds are stacked against you regardless if you're innocent or not, and I think that is a greater problem than having some strange man knock on your door while you're on holiday to take a blood test.

Cheers
Gonz

[Dumbellina]

I agree that cyclists elected to sign a contract that commits them to several things (in fact there are several contracts that create many many commitments - cyclist & national federation (& UCI), cyclist & national olympic committee, cyclist & team, cyclist & individual sponsors, etc) but there are a couple of issues
* no contract can lawfully remove or deny someone's human rights, including the right to privacy (with certain limitations)
* these are essentially employment contracts, so the same obligations (including drug and alcohol test for safe workplaces) and rights (right to privacy, right to a safe workplace) apply as do regular employment contracts
* there is also an issue about freedom of contract, given that the UCI and pro-tours are the sole providers of meaningful employment for pro-cyclists (except, perhaps, the US domestic circuit) and they control an actual monopoly over the pro-cycling market - there may be grounds to argue that there is no freedom of contract, rather a compulsion to accept their terms or no terms at all.
* I think it relevant that all sports should be governed equally - scrap the national federations and Olympic committees, make the WADA Code entirely binding on all sports (even non-Olympic ones), and replace them with truly professional governing bodies.

[Pete W]

* no contract can lawfully remove or deny someone's human rights, including the right to privacy (with certain limitations)
* these are essentially employment contracts, so the same obligations (including drug and alcohol test for safe workplaces) and rights (right to privacy, right to a safe workplace) apply as do regular employment contracts
* there is also an issue about freedom of contract, given that the UCI and pro-tours are the sole providers of meaningful employment for pro-cyclists (except, perhaps, the US domestic circuit) and they control an actual monopoly over the pro-cycling market - there may be grounds to argue that there is no freedom of contract, rather a compulsion to accept their terms or no terms at all.
* I think it relevant that all sports should be governed equally - scrap the national federations and Olympic committees, make the WADA Code entirely binding on all sports (even non-Olympic ones), and replace them with truly professional governing bodies.

I agree totally with your last paragraph
But don't you think continually bleating on with the civil libertarian blah blah and not providing a suitable alternative to the current situation so to raise the sport out of the current mire it is in, sounds really like these guys are guilty and are just trying to save thier own skin on a percieved technicality?

The inevedible consequence of a hard line approach to cleaning up this sport for the betterment of it means that there will be some that tow the line and excel and others will cheat, get caught and blame every thing and everyone else for doing exactly that...... cheating.
I feel that its time to get tough with the rules or change them.

[DaGonz]

Hooray!

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?...ov07/nov29news

"The court ruled that the case should be tried in a court in Switzerland, where the UCI is headquartered. It also ruled that a rider's application for a license was the equivalent of a contract, and in accepting the license, the rider also accepted the UCI's terms and conditions, including anti-doping controls."

I'm pretty sure someone recently has gone through the same thing in a spanish court. I couldn't find the reference though so am not sure and could easily be wrong.

you might see this as a win or a loss. Personally I see it as a win. While I agree that the current anti doping measures might be pressing the realms of "reasonable", it is important that international sporting bodies are able to enforce the rules under which their athletes have agreed to compete. the next step is getting UCI to actually do so in a consistent manner.

Kashechkin has chosen not to argue the results of his positive test, merely pushed a legal loophole. If he won, it would do nothing to the image of cycling, or Kashechkin other than the perceived "cheater" getting off on a loophole. The damage could be far reaching including further cases from already suspended riders, damage to UCI & Cyclings image as a whole, and serious implications to the anti doping movement. If he loses, he only further proves the system works. There can be nothing good for Kashechkin from this case.

...just my thoughts anyway

Cheers
Gonz

[liamo]

Hooray!

Release the hounds then :)

you might see this as a win or a loss. Personally I see it as a win. While I agree that the current anti doping measures might be pressing the realms of "reasonable", it is important that international sporting bodies are able to enforce the rules under which their athletes have agreed to compete.

I don't really see it as either. I just think it is important to hold some perspective on things. Signing away human rights and making professional sportspeople second class citizens is not something I would like to see associated with cycling.

I'm happy enough to accept the decision that it was not a breach of human rights, therefore Kashechkin should be held fully accountable, punished and life moves on.

Liam

[alchemist]

Did the court actually decide that it was not a breach of human rights? Or just that the signing of the licence was a contract and since that was between the rider and the UCI in Switzerland it had not juristiction to rule on whether or not the contract was a breach of human rights; please try next door?

[liamo]

Or just that the signing of the licence was a contract and since that was between the rider and the UCI in Switzerland it had not juristiction to rule on whether or not the contract was a breach of human rights; please try next door?

Well spotted, it does not appear there was any consideration to the human rights issue at all. Then I guess my concerns on the matter are still unanswered...

[Dumbellina]

Did the court actually decide that it was not a breach of human rights? Or just that the signing of the licence was a contract and since that was between the rider and the UCI in Switzerland it had not juristiction to rule on whether or not the contract was a breach of human rights; please try next door?

Its a conflict of laws matter - "A Belgian court has refused to hear the case, ruling that it has no jurisdiction in the matter, and that Kashechkin had agreed to undergo such testing when he accepted his license."'

A licence is of course a contract and most contracts specify the "law of the contract", ie which nation's domestic law governs disputes and interpretation etc.

One would think this a simple matter but its not. As well as the law governing the contract, there are human rights law which can have universal jurisdiction (eg genocide) which means a legal action can be brought there regardless of where the incident happened (eg Switerland) or the parties' nationality. Belgian courts famously have universal jurisdiction for war crimes, genocide, etc, it its natural to assume that a human rights case should be brought there.

So Alchemist is right the Belgians "whoof shrugged" the case to Switzerland and the substantive points of law are yet to be argued and deliberated. But I would be interested to see their reasons for declining universal jurisdiction.

Gonz- human rights aren't loopholes to the law, they are the fundamental fibres that make it up. It could be no different to the athlete being "water boarded" by CIA contractors as part of the testing regime.

[DaGonz]

Gonz- human rights aren't loopholes to the law, they are the fundamental fibres that make it up. It could be no different to the athlete being "water boarded" by CIA contractors as part of the testing regime.

You're missing my point. This guy has been busted. Both his A and B samples have been tested in accordance with UCI and WADA rules and both have been found positive. He's not arguing the result, instead he's arguing an aspect of the law, regardless of what it is to say the test shouldn't have been done in the first place.

Now he's welcome to take whatever defence he likes, but at the end of the day, it's a seemingly guilty man (remembering he's not arguing the result) claiming the rules arn't fair after he was paid large amounts of money, and agreed to compete under the auspicies of those rules...

The rights of workers, has been argued for centuries, and this is no different except normally there is a collective arguing the point. This is a sole person, implicated negatively in a scandal. I strongly feel it would be a bad thing for cycling, and there would be far reaching implications if he wins.

Cheers
Gonz