Interesting article!
Pound ridicules Warne's claim
Australia faces international ridicule if it is perceived to have "gone soft" on Shane Warne in the wake of his positive drug test, according to the world's top anti-doping official.
The chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency, Dick Pound, yesterday said Warne's explanation that his mother had given him a banned tablet was laughable and among the best he had heard.
"Poisoned by his mother? It is good, very good; it ranks up there with the one, 'I got it from the toilet seat,' " said Pound, a Canadian lawyer and former vice-president of the International Olympic Committee who has heard a raft of explanations from athletes to excuse positive drug tests, ranging from spiking of toothpaste to contaminated meat and too much ***.
Pound warned that a lenient Australian Cricket Board decision would put at risk Australia's reputation as a tough leader in the fight against doping, particularly as it came after the case of Commonwealth Games shooter Phil Adams, who received a warning for taking diuretics.
"I think Australia in general has to be very careful in a case like Warne's. There has been a long history of Australia accusing everyone, but your country doesn't have the same enthusiasm when your folks are involved," Pound said.
"Australia has to avoid that perception of going soft on its athletes while it attacks others like the Chinese."
In 1998, four Chinese swimmers were banned for four years after testing positive to diuretics at the world championships in Perth.
Pound's fears on Warne's case were supported by a leading Australian sports lawyer, who predicted that loopholes in the ACB's doping policy would allow the leg spinner to escape penalty.
Simon Rofe, the Australian Olympic Committee's long-term lawyer and a pioneer in the drafting of anti-doping documentation, said the ACB had altered a model anti-doping policy allowing it to grant greater leniency to athletes. He said cricket's poorly drafted document allowed Warne to claim he took a diuretic for vanity - not for recovery from injury or performance enhancement - meaning he may escape penalty. Rofe believed the ACB's "exceptional circumstances" clause was poorly worded and will assist Warne to beat the charge.
"If Warne can establish that he had an honest and reasonable belief he was not taking a diuretic, he gets off scot-free," Rofe said. "The policy of strict liability (an athlete being responsible for what goes in his mouth) goes out the window."
Australian Sports Commission chief Grant Peters confirmed the ACB had taken the model policy and changed it to include a vague clause which grants greater leniency to athletes.
