PNG anti-doping body sheds light on protocols

PAPUA New Guinea Sports Anti-doping Organisation chairman Dr Bernie Amof came out recently to explain the situation weightlifters Dika Toua and Morea Baru had which resulted in the pair missing out on the world championships due to a failure in meeting requirements set out by the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) this year.
Prior to being deemed inelligible to compete at the world championships, Toua and Baru had competed at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in May and won silver medals.
Toua was beaten by India’s Sanjita Chanu in the women’s 53kg division however the gold medlallist later tested positive for a banned anabolic steroid and was provisionally suspended by the International Weightlifting Federation.
IWF said on its website that Chanu had tested positive for testosterone.
“IWF reports that the sample of Sanjita Chanu has returned an adverse analytical finding for testosterone (S1.1 Anabolic Agents).
“As a consequence, the athlete is provisionally suspended in view of a potential anti-doping rule violation,” IWF said in a brief statement posted on its website.
“In any case where it is determined that the athlete did not commit an anti-doping rule violation, the relevant decision will also be published,” the IWF added.
The IWF did not give details, such as the dates, of the dope test sample collection, saying “it will not make any further comments on the case until it is closed”.
The PNG Olympic Committee has to date not made a specific statement on the matter as it relates to Toua — whether she will be awarded the gold medal if Chanu is stripped.
Amof said the requirement was for the athletes to update their ‘Athlete’s Whereabouts Information’ through the Anti-doping Administration Management Services (ADAMS) software.
“This is an online software that is specific to individual athletes which they are required to update every three months,” Amof said.
WADA uses information in there to monitor athletes for testing purposes.
By failing to meet this requirement, Amof said the two athletes had violated an anti-doping rule.
Because of this they were denied the opportunity to represent PNG November’s world championships which was also a qualifying event for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Article 2.4 Whereabouts Failures; states that: “Any combination of three missed tests and/or filing failures, as defined in the international standard for testing and investigations, within a 12-month period by an athlete in an international registered testing pool, commits an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV) .”
The ‘WADA Code’ is a set of rules, which establish the fundamental principles on which all efficient anti-doping policies should be based, for adoption and implementation by sports governing bodies.
It includes the prohibited list and other international standards for testing, therapeutic use exemptions and laboratory procedures.
“Both athletes failed to update their Whereabouts Information/ filing failures quarterly thus committing an Anti-doping Rule Violation (ADRV) and sanctioned by its major event organiser, the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF), to be in-eligible for the Tokyo Olympics,” Amof said.
The sanction could be up to two years or less based on the intensions and previous occurrences.
The Athlete’s Whereabouts Information is the sole responsibility of each individual athlete. However, the management must oversee or verify that the process is completed within the timeframe provisions of the code.
There are 10 ways an athlete can commit an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV).
The most common way is the urine/blood sample analysis which reveals the prohibited substances and how that gets into his/her body.
It is a strict liability rule. Athlete Whereabouts Information is among nine other non-analytical ways to doping infringements, for example, found in possession of drugs, evading or avoiding the sample collection process.