Rojo - you should read what the tribunal wrote, not Jon's disgusting doper defense piece. He writes it in exactly the same style like his ill-advised Shelburrito "editorial": pretending there are two equally possible options against all the evidence, and then arguing in favor of the doper despite the unanimous tribunal decision who had actually seen the evidence.
Other little tricks: always go with the doper's (long dismissed!) version first, then some time later reveal the actual story but very briefly while pretending that that is just the (corrupt/evil/overeager) opinion of the AIU or the tribunal. Then put the opinion of anonymous letsrun armchair "experts" like twoggle and other trolls above the expert expertise of Prof. McClone or Prof. Saugy etc. And keep writing 5x what the doper and their slimy lawyer said, and how hard it is on the poor drug cheat, and so on and so on, and only 1x what the tribunal or the experts said.
Not true? "Evil Coverup" is the very first thing the title says, and the first quote - a 7 line paragraph - is from the doper's lawyer. Only then comes a much shorter statement (2 lines) about what the AIU said, without a quote. With that said, then Jon goes on and on how great the doper was, to then finally mention some facts about the case.
Then comes one paragraph about what the doper said.
Then come two paragraph about what the doper's lawyer said.
Then again what the doper said. Keeping track, rojo? We are now at 2 lines from the AIU, and 20ish lines from the doper's side. At this point, many readers will be on the side of the doper. Well played, Jon.
Oh look, now finally an expert got a say, though that looks terrible for the doper.
Then long details about the case, followed by - you guessed it - what the slimy lawyer thinks about it.
And so on and on Jon goes. With some judgments about the AIU "That’s convenient for the AIU", and - of course - more statements and quotes from the lawyer, and none from the AIU's side. Then how hard it is for the drug cheat to be banned for 4 years... hard to imagine a more biased report.
To return to the original question, yes, Asinga is more likely dirty than not. And it makes sense that the AIU needs more than manufacturing irregularities before it is willing to throw out a positive test. So AIU's resolution was probably the correct one, given the circumstances. But Gatorade has gone really wrong here, to the extent that a deeper coverup is not impossible. We shouldn't let them off the hook just because the most likely possibility is that Asinga doped.
Yeah, two things are two concurrently true here:
1. Gatorade messed up, bad.
2. Asinga (or more likely, his team) messed up, bad.
Both being true does not invalidate the other. And I'm glad the AIU is smart enough to understand that.
He didn't necessarily crank up the night before the test.( Moran)
Indeed. And we are not talking about nanograms per se, but nanograms per g or per gummy or per ml urine. E.g., the gummies had between 1.5 and 810 ng each.
How much was he found with per ml urine? I don't see it in the DT decision.
Did they just release the details? Seems like we talked about all these points before. I didn't see anything new that I didn't seem to already know.
Here is what I find most troubling:
The AIU disciplinary tribunal wrote: "although it does not have an impact on its ultimate conclusion and although it cannot be ruled out, the Panel finds that there are significant caveats in the adulteration scenario".
When it comes to suggestions of spiking or tampering the gummy samples, the Disciplinary Tribunal wasn't convinced, as "traces of GW1516 could be found in the interior of the gummies". While this didn't matter at all for the conclusion (also troubling), it should matter here to everyone who is convinced that spiking or tampering was found, or occurred. If the panel was not convinced after seeing all the evidence, noone else should be either.
Furthermore, why even suggest adulteration at all? The way the WADA Code structures the rules, the athlete is the one with all the burden. Here, the AIU can say what it likes and does "not need to prove adulteration occurred", because it does not "matter for the conclusion".
But putting aside whether Asinga is dirty or not, how is the innocent athlete (see for example, the case of Simon Getzmann), who has all the burden of investigating the likely source of a banned substance, supposed to meet this burden if all the possible avenues are taken away, simply by making alternative statements which do not have to be proven? Simon Getzmann established the source by testing his unused medication, which tested positive. Imagine that his exculpatory evidence didn't count because the package was opened, or because the contamination was in an outside coating.
The burden required by the ADR (the WADA Code) has forced this 19-year old boy, just out of high school, at his own expense, to investigate how Gatorade produced and sold these gummies, manufactured by Better Nutritionals, and how NSF Certification works, with changing lot numbers, etc. He was actually forturnate enough to have the remaining samples tested, and test positive. Before this case, finding the substance contained in a supplement listed on the DCF form would have exonerated any athlete, but for Asinga, we are debating how this doesn't really count because the substance was mostly on the exterior, despite unexplained traces in the interior, of the gummies.
The Panel spends some time evaluating how one likely scenario is that the molds that shape the gummies may have been improperly cleaned. There "are no records on file". How is a 19-year old high school graduate supposed to prove the molds were completely cleaned? He is now burdened with investigating all the products that Better Nutritionals manufacturers, to rebut Witness statements that GW1516 isn't any ingredient (either known or unknown) used in other products. That seems like a pretty big ask to burden any athlete with, while the AIU can allege whatever comes to mind.
The Panel puts it best in paragraph 120: "The Panel is, of course aware that these are difficult, if not impossible, elements for the Athlete to establish. However the fact remains that, ..., it is the athlete's burden to establish the Prohibited Substance came from a Contaminated Product."
This difficult if not impossible burden is how we are supposed to decide whether innocent athletes are truly innocent.
1) At the Gatorade AOY awards ceremony last year, Asinga was given a box of Gatorade Gummies that were falsely labeled as NSF Certified ((meaning they are certified contain no banned substances) when in fact NSF says those gummies should not have had that on the label as they were not NSF Certified.
2) Less than two months after being added to the out of competition testing pool, Assinga, who ran 9.89 and 19.97 last year, tested positive for the banned substance GW1516.
3) Asinga sent his Gatorade Gummies in to be tested for contamination and it was determined they were contaminated with GW1516.
Asinga is still banned as the anti-doping authorities don't see any reason why GW1516 would end up be involved in the manufacturing process.
If you read the AIU decision, there really are only two options:
Option 1: An 18-year-old was caught doping barely a month after being added to the international testing pool. Then he or someone in his camp tried to cover up his doping by manipulating evidence and defaming Gatorade, one of the world’s largest sports nutrition companies.
Option 2: One of the greatest sprint talents in history was unjustly banned after consuming a tainted supplement given to him by one of the most famous brands in sports.
There's a lot more to the story including the fact that Gatorade no longer makes the Gummies due to "manufacturing reasons", the company that made it for them is now bankrupt and Gatorade also didn't give Asinga an unsealed box with the same lot as his gummies came from for re-testing. So please read the story now before posting any of your thoughts.
It makes me wonder what percentage of high schoolers are on drugs. I read a few years ago that a purported 5% of HS athletes are on GH. The times we are seeing can't just be attributed to the following:
1) faster tracks, sorry tracks aren't faster, very few tracks were resurfaced starting in 2021
2) shoes, yes the shoes are certainly part of the equation, but 69? boys breaking 2min at Arcadia?
3) double threshold, maybe, but it still takes years to develop aerobically, maybe a few here and there are getting a boost with different training but I'm guessing many HS are on peptides and SARMS.
Then I read how the bottle was falsely labelled as NSF certified, how the company is now bankrupt and had manufacturing problems . how Gatorade wouldn't hand over the actual lot number and how even the AIU seems to think it would be hard to coat the samples in the way they were coated. My conclusion instantly changed to: "Guilty or not, this is a $500,000 lawsuit at a minimum probably a few million."
I had a guy tell me it might cost a million in NIL money just to get Asinga to run for your college team so there is A LOT of money lost here.
Do you know how much it'd be for people like Wilson?
he is definitely guilty, but just might get away with it because of the improper label. Hope he doesn't.
Rojo, pretty disingenuous of you not to include the info about the outside of the gummies having much higher concentrations.
it's just click-baity.
I get the criticism that rojo didn't lay it all out in the post, and the article might be overly sympathetic to Assinga, but at the same time, I haven't seen people say anything that Gault didn't have in the article and I think alot of people are overly critical of Assinga.
I believe that Assinga is doped, but at the same time, I'm not totally convinced that a high school kid was doping on his own and I'm not sure he's the actual story. Were his parents helping him? A private coach? Was the Montverde Academy team as a whole doping? Are coaches at Montverde doping High school kids? I think any case of a high school kid getting busted basically immediately after entering the testing pool needs a bigger investigation than just him and his gummies. My guess is that if you had the entire team tested he wouldn't have been the only one pissing hot. Assinga just flew too close to the sun, and ended up needing to get tested. Had he not done as well, and just been kinda normal, won state, did ok at NBO, he never would have been in the testing pool, and no one would have ever known he was doping.
His parents don't even live in the USA and Montverde is a boarding school. Plus if you watch RunnerBoi's documentary on the case, he found comments from his relatives vehemently defending him on Facebook and Reddit saying he was set up, so I doubt his parents had involvement.
