Armitstead missed three drugs tests.

Now we have something / quite-a-lot to discuss and celebrate.
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mjr
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Re: Armitstead missed three drugs tests.

Post by mjr »

One missed test, one filing failure and one almighty mess up by a tester. They might as well not test them as do it as badly as reported because it'll never stick even if someone's guilty.
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Re: Armitstead missed three drugs tests.

Post by Tonyf33 »

mjr wrote:One missed test, one filing failure and one almighty mess up by a tester. They might as well not test them as do it as badly as reported because it'll never stick even if someone's guilty.

THREE missed tests, she missed THREE through her inaction and it's only a mess due to her, an athlete who doesn't give a stuff about the rules, doesn't take responsibility for being easily available, everybody can manage it, why can't she?
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Re: Armitstead missed three drugs tests.

Post by mjr »

Not three. One. Can CAS find forum posters in contempt? ;-)

What would you like her to do? Get up at six and hang around the hotel lobby for an hour each day, just in case a tester wanders in and doesn't seriously attempt to find her?
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Re: Armitstead missed three drugs tests.

Post by Psamathe »

(I have no idea about the implications of 3 strikes or 2 and a justified excuse or etc. but ...)

With the scandals over doping in Cycling in recent years, and with the prominence of doping in the news and the number of people banned from various events in this years Olympics, etc. reports on doping, etc. it makes you really question how or why somebody with such ambition does not make sure they are 110% compliant with dotting every "i" and crossing every "t" all the time.

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Re: Armitstead missed three drugs tests.

Post by Toffee »

I would imagine that life just gets in the way and that telling some web site where you will be for an hour, no matter how important, just gets missed.

Derek
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Re: Armitstead missed three drugs tests.

Post by Tonyf33 »

I'm sure sending a text message to update your whereabouts (which is allowable in emergency's) and letting the hotel you're staying at that you might be expecting a visit is so difficult to do, I mean it's not as if the other professional things like nutrition and training and ensuring you get onto flights, get your kit sorted etc aren't important right.
She's tainted now and no matter what her whining about how hard she's been done by mud sticks and so it should, she didn't play by the rules so she deserves every bit of negativity toward her.

Glad of the result, and a real shame for the US athlete but getting any medal would have been a travesty for fair play.
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Re: Armitstead missed three drugs tests.

Post by Postboxer »

Yes, but how are the hotel to know if the person asking for some guests' room number is a drug's tester? They didn't tell them. You would assume the team booking the hotel would make them aware that they are cyclists and that it's very important to let drug tester's in, but still best that the person turning up offers this information rather than the hotel asking for it.
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Re: Armitstead missed three drugs tests.

Post by Psamathe »

Postboxer wrote:Yes, but how are the hotel to know if the person asking for some guests' room number is a drug's tester? They didn't tell them. You would assume the team booking the hotel would make them aware that they are cyclists and that it's very important to let drug tester's in, but still best that the person turning up offers this information rather than the hotel asking for it.

In my day (just using hotels not as a sports person) if a hotel would not give a room number to a visitor they would still call the room on the room phone and "you have a visitor in reception". Business people have visitors, families have visitors, the system works.

I would assume that any tester has some form of proof of identity given they are their to collect samples from the individual - so to turn-up with just "I'm a official drugs tester" verbal statement would seem a bit inadequate (given the lengths the press will go to these days).

Ian
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Re: Armitstead missed three drugs tests.

Post by mjr »

Psamathe wrote:In my day (just using hotels not as a sports person) if a hotel would not give a room number to a visitor they would still call the room on the room phone and "you have a visitor in reception". Business people have visitors, families have visitors, the system works.

I would assume that any tester has some form of proof of identity given they are their to collect samples from the individual - so to turn-up with just "I'm a official drugs tester" verbal statement would seem a bit inadequate (given the lengths the press will go to these days).

Yes. See the link given earlier:
http://cyclingtips.com/2016/08/doping-control-officer-its-right-that-armitstead-was-cleared-in-her-whereabouts-case/ wrote:“The guy said that he wasn’t given access at the hotel. That is quite unusual, really,” he said. “If you start flashing badges that you are anti-doping anywhere on the continent, especially in a hotel that is keeping bike riders, normally the hotel will give it up.”

He did say that on one occasion at a race in Spain, hotel staff refused to accept his anti-doping accreditation as sufficient proof of his need to test athletes. He was asked to produce a passport, but was able to carry out the doping control after returning to his hotel to get the identification in question.

I agree that Armitstead should have tried harder to avoid a missed test, especially after the disputed one and the filing failure, but it does sound like the first tester probably didn't show identification to the hotel desk, which is just bizarre. For the testing system to work, testers need to do better than that.
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Re: Armitstead missed three drugs tests.

Post by Tonyf33 »

The onus is on the athlete to be contactable, absolving yourself from ensuring you are easily contactable is not how things work, that's not just for pro sports people with a career on the line. So, you are pro-active, that's part of the responsibility you take on as part of fighting against drug cheats. Simply let the hotel reception know X when you arrive, it should be standard practise/automatic, set reminders for these extremely important matters if you are a dippy sort, whilst forgetting to take the right right supplements/eat the correct foods or forget to train correctly might be acceptable, not doing the right thing with regards to your responsibility regarding drugs is not, however you are given three chances to take into account that no-one is perfect.
The first missed test was with other team members, not just some random out the way nowhereville on her own,
You as a travelling sports person know how security in hotels work, this is not an unknown factor. You know how you can contact/update your whereabouts and how easy that is to do.
I've not an iota of sympathy for her and her dog ate my homework excuses and that CAS have overturned the first one on some dodgy premise is not going to change that view.
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Re: Armitstead missed three drugs tests.

Post by Postboxer »

What about the fact that she had someone at British Cycling to keep a check on her, but he left his post without anyone telling her, any sympathy for that?

What about having some family medical emergency? Any sympathy for that?
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Re: Armitstead missed three drugs tests.

Post by Psamathe »

Postboxer wrote:...
What about having some family medical emergency? Any sympathy for that?

We've all had family medical emergencies and it normally isn't so critical that you can't spend 30 secs sending a text message. I've had them and I still have to have time to sort out my dog (I can't just abandon her for an unspecified time). In the case of medical emergencies, family attending can be helpful but not at a level of emergency that means throwing your career away. Medical emergencies tend to involve ambulances and non-medical onlookers being kept out of the way.

Ian
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Re: Armitstead missed three drugs tests.

Post by mjr »

Tonyf33 wrote:Simply let the hotel reception know X when you arrive, it should be standard practise/automatic, [...]
You as a travelling sports person know how security in hotels work, this is not an unknown factor.

So in your opinion, should she have told them to direct absolutely anyone up to her room between the hours of 6am and 7am? "According to the Daily Mail, the doping control officer [DCO] didn’t explain to hotel staff why he wanted the rider’s room number. After the staff refused to give him the information, he tried to contact her on her mobile phone, but she said that she had put it on silent while sleeping and didn’t hear it as a result. The Mail states that it appears no other attempts were made by the official to inform her about the test."

That's also odd. I understand that the minimum is for the tester to call every 10-15 minutes and to remain near the location, not just let it ring once, shrug, go away and report it as a failure. You could almost wonder if the tester wanted a scalp...
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Re: Armitstead missed three drugs tests.

Post by pjclinch »

I'm much more inclined to cock-up than any sort of conspiracy, but I think Vos was probably fair when she suggested naivety.

It might not be your fault that your sport has a rather draconian anti-doping regime, but you go along knowing what it is, why it is, and you need to participate with the knowledge that that is how the game is played. And the knowledge that if you don't play it that way then you will be thought ill of even if it's not really your fault.

Given the significance of anti-doping these days it really is important that if you miss something then you either make hell about it ASAP if it's someone else's Bad, or take immediate and public ownership of it if it's your fault and/or an "excrement occurs" (like Chris Froome's missed one where he was in an hotel that refused to disturb him).

I think she's clean, but she is at least in part responsible for the spot between rock and hard place she's in.

Anyway, enough of that, and Go Emma! in the TT...

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Re: Armitstead missed three drugs tests.

Post by Tonyf33 »

Postboxer wrote:What about the fact that she had someone at British Cycling to keep a check on her, but he left his post without anyone telling her, any sympathy for that?

What about having some family medical emergency? Any sympathy for that?

That has being shown to have nothing to do with her with respect to the missed tests.
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