Jama Aden sighting. Aden honored in both Bahrain and Somalia for coaching Bahrain's Kalkidan Gezahegne to Olympic silver

Now I wonder — is “casual obsever” telling us the whole story, or just cherry-picking some of the facts? I wonder what reading the whole policy will uncover?

The policy I cited is explicit for investigations:

Disclosing suspensions is another story. Is there a timing requirement for this public disclosure?

Are there exceptions in the policy?

Here’s what the AIU said about Houlihan:

According to the WADA code a ban isn't required to be made public until 20 days after the final ruling is handed down and if the final ruling is that there's no violation it nevers needs to be made public.

No problem! send safesport for this guy.

I can understand that USA and Canada are leading North America in Transfers of Allegiance, but but what about theses Asian countries of 1.5 million / 2.8 millions populations?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eligibility_transfers_in_athletics

dullard wrote:

According to the WADA code a ban isn't required to be made public until 20 days after the final ruling is handed down and if the final ruling is that there's no violation it nevers needs to be made public.

I am aware of that; I brought up the official AIU policy to even publish provisional suspensions (which is obvious given that they have their own page for the announcement of provisional suspensions), because rekrunner claimed the opposite (" it is customary, and recommended, to keep news of any suspension or investigation quiet until a guilty verdict is reached.").

But 20 days... the AIU ruling was on May 13, and we didn't hear until June 15 (which wasn't even from the AIU). That's over 30 days. Oh well, who is counting.

What was on May 13?

According to the AIU: “In this case, the notice of charge was issued on 12/13 May, two or three weeks ahead of an agreed expedited hearing at CAS. We made a judgment call that an announcement before the CAS Decision was not in anybody’s interest.”

The AIU website dates the decision on 11 June.

How many days?

Thanks - what was on June 11? CAS met on June 4, so June 11 can't really have been the AIU decision. Or can it?

AIU still hasn't published any details of their decision, as of August 21. This is all messed up.

This page

https://www.athleticsintegrity.org/disciplinary-process/provisional-suspensions-in-force

lists several different steps for the various cases, including Notice of Allegation Issued and Notice of Charge Issued and Awaiting Decision and Referred to DT and Awaiting Decision and Decision by the Chair of the IAAF DT and On-going investigation - none of that was made public in Houlihan's case.

Did AIU ever say why they decided to keep her provisional ban from January 14 as a secret?

That led to lots of lies from BTC in the process (such as announcing her to race when they knew she wouldn't, and then coming up with an injury as a cover, and then her agent lying to letsrun of course). And of course it reinforced the fact that at any time, any athlete might be secretly banned, like Houlihan was from January to June.

There doesn’t seem to be any AIU decision ruling as such, as both parties agreed to go to CAS (this looks like a strategic mistake as they gave up any chance for appeal).

I posted quotes above — the AIU was waiting for a response, which came in May. The AIU policy appears to give the AIU a lot of flexibility to delay the public disclosure, if they decide to, or to not disclose it at all.

Another note about “customary to delay public disclosure”: When I said it was customary to delay announcements of provisions, I did not limit my statement to the AIU (so the AIU policy isn’t completely applicable), and I wasn’t thinking about when the AIU announced provisional suspensions. As I said, “in cases like Houlihan’s”, I had in mind similar “contamination” cases, like how USADA delayed the announcement of Ajee Wilson, Jarrion Lawson, Will Claye, Gil Roberts, Brenda Martinez and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu athlete Gabrielle Lemos Garcia. The AIU is a recently formed organization, and their policy (dated 2019?) is too new to be considered “customary” in cases like Houlihan’s.

You are too quick to reduce everything to “lying” and “lots of lies” — it’s a very dark and destructive way to view the world. Perhaps BTC was hopeful that the case would be resolved. I don’t seen any moral or ethical issue with BTC not disclosing the suspension and on-going dispute to the public. They are under no obligation to disclose the suspension, investigation, and on-going case, and there is only a massive reputational downside for prematurely announcing a suspension and dispute that may find her innocent.

rekrunner wrote:

You are too quick to reduce everything to “lying” and “lots of lies” — it’s a very dark and destructive way to view the world. Perhaps BTC was hopeful that the case would be resolved.

Perhaps they were hopeful (which I doubt, given the open-and-shut nature of the case), but you can't argue that announcing her to race a time-trial in the spring as preparation for the trials when they knew she couldn't was a lie, and that pretending she was injured when she wasn't was a lie etc.

Yes, no obligation for BTC to disclose the provisional suspension, but obviously that either leads to evasive answers to questions such as why didn't she race or, as in this case, direct lies to obfuscate the facts.

Oh, and now AIU is back to announcing comparable provisional bans, such as for Ujah despite his contamination claim.

Some lies are simply not important. In this case, it is more important to hide the existence of a dispute, which, if successful, would never need to become public.

As I explained, the AIU is a new organization, and is only just one ADO. Other ADOs, e.g. USADA, have different policies and customs, especially with cases of contamination. Apparently the new policy of the newly formed AIU, gives them a great deal of latitude to self-decide when to delay public disclosure, or in rare cases, not to disclose it at all. It is allowed in the policy.

One problem with these lies and secrets are that similar scenarios are inevitable.

Next time when Jerry says that one of his athletes is injured, it will be speculated that there is yet another positive test/silent provisional ban because of this precedence.

Plus Jerry lost credibility. If one lies to protect somebody else's reputation, both will suffer once the truth comes out, such as in this case.

Another problem is that many other caught dopers will argue with the AIU that their provisional ban should be kept secret too. And if AIU does not comply, they and their fans can rightfully accuse AIU of a double standard and so on.

Plus, the reason given does not sound very compelling:

"After the finding in January, we had to wait for an explanation, which then had to be verified and assessed before issuing a charge. This took time."

That only explains why the charge was not issued before May, not why the provisional ban wasn't announced in January. Compare that for example with the cases from this year's Olympics. None of those athletes had weeks to provide an explanation before an announcement, rather the provisional bans were are announced quite readily (while of course the charges haven't been issued yet).

Then, why was the notice of charge not announced?

"In this case, the notice of charge was issued on 12/13 May, two or three weeks ahead of an agreed expedited hearing at CAS. We made a judgment call that an announcement before the CAS Decision was not in anybody’s interest."

- because the CAS decision was supposed to come out some weeks later (4,5 weeks, to be precise). Not a very compelling argument either.

Can anyone explain the different name? Jama Aden Vs Jama Karacin?

Must mean something in another language, or an additional name, and I’ve seen various spellings/misspellings.

His facebook page says “Coach JAMA ADEN (KARAIIN)”

This is a good explanation of a “zero tolerance” mentality, among those who look for doping everywhere, and need to cast the net wider and wider, because current methods do not find enough.

It’s a lose-lose situation, once a result comes back positive, and the process is triggered. Under “strict liability”, the “B” sample confirmation is an automatic violation, and the only question is if the athlete can meet the burden of proving “not intentional” in order to reduce or escape a sanction.

The “truth” we have learned is that the WADA code, and the principle of “strict liability”, cannot distinguish between accidental ingestion that cannot be proved to an arbitration panel, and intentional ingestion.

Props to Tygart/USADA for going out of their way to help the athletes navigate the WADA code.

Many athletes came forward in support of Houlihan because they are at the same risk — all one pork meal away from a 4-year ban and a permanent scarlet letter “D”.

Whether you find the AIU’s reasons compelling or not, it looks like the policy gives the AIU a lot of latitude to decide for themselves when, or if, to publicly disclose a suspension.

LOL

a) You don't know why they came forward - they could have come forward because they are friends, on the same team, and also maybe because they would want support when caught doping too.

b) No one is "one pork meal away from a 4-year ban":

1) It would have to be uncastrated boar, which is hard to get in the US (unlike in France and Germany, yet even there it's hard to find such cases).

2) The lab would then determine that it's endogenous, not exogenous as in case of banned drug cheat Houlihan.

3) Then the athlete only needs to come up with a source that is more likely than not true - contrary to your often repeated claim, that does not need to "be proved to an arbitration panel".

ReasonS? LOL - they only said why they kept the notice of charge secret ("an announcement before the CAS Decision was not in anybody’s interest” - which I indeed find not compelling, and sportsintegrityinitiative "debatable"); they did not say why they kept the provisional ban a secret.

But yes, their self-given policy allows them to choose (and also to keep their reason secret), no argument there. But as described, that opened up a can of worms.

They may have come forth for other reasons — friends and teammates and competitors supporting her character.

1) I saw reports that un-castrated boar is rare but not all that uncommon in Oregon. And WA and WADA are worldwide.

2) This is a bit unclear for me, as I really didn’t dig into the details, but I thought the presence of un-castrated boar meant more testing or a requiring a better test, or even reclassifying it as an ATF rather than AAF.

3) I don’t see the difference — in Houlihan’s case, it was the arbitration panel that decided if the evidence meets the standard.