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Jamaican drugs row threatens to overshadow country's awards double
• Bolt and Fraser-Pryce expected to be named top athletes
• Fraser-Pryce threatens to strike over 'hurtful' comments
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce says Jamaica should back athletes who failed drugs tests because 'we dont know what happened'. Photograph: Olivier Morin/AFP/Getty ImagesSean Ingle
Friday 15 November 2013 18.42 GMT
World athletics' traditional end of year gala, amid the air kisses and champagne smiles of Monte Carlo, allows the globe's best athletes to gather and unwind at the sport's annual awards.
With Jamaica's star sprinters, Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, expected to be named male and female athlete of the year – the first time a country will have scooped both awards since Britain's Colin Jackson and Sally Gunnell in 1993 – it should be a time of celebration and revelment for the small Caribbean island. Instead the event, and Jamaica's likely triumph, has been overshadowed by ongoing debates over performance-enhancing drugs and a strike threat by Fraser-Pryce, the world's top female sprinter.
Fraser-Pryce's anger has been fuelled by comments from Jamaica's most senior drug tester, Dr Paul Wright, who claimed the island's high number of failed tests in 2013 might be the "tip of an iceberg". Fraser-Pryce, in turn, has called such comments "hurtful" and accused the country's authorities of "not speaking up for its athletes".
"When our athletes test positive for stimulants, you realise that when members of the JAAA or Jadco come and make accusations and say things about our athletes – hurtful stuff – that for each person the situation is different," she told reporters in Monte Carlo. "We don't know what happened, they make a mistake. That's just life. It's important for them as a federation and country to stand by their athletes because we don't know the circumstances."
While Fraser-Pryce was threatening to withdraw from international competition, Herb Elliott, Jamaica's team doctor at the 2008 Beijing Olympics before becoming chairman of Jadco in February 2012, was indicating he would resign following a Wall Street Journal report that questioned his academic qualifications. Elliot was already under pressure following revelations from Renée Anne Shirley, the former executive editor of Jadco, that there was just one random test in the country between March and July 2012 while the country's athletes prepared for the Olympic Games. But the Journal's report has led him to concede: "In the interest of Jadco and Jamaica, I would resign."
The paper quoted Jennifer Caplan, an official in the registrar's department at Columbia, as saying that there was no record of anyone with Elliot's name attaining a masters in chemistry at the university. It also claimed that a database of graduate-science theses by students at the Université Libre de Bruxelles did not include any work by Elliot.
Elliot has denied the allegations of fabricating his CV, saying: "My life is an open book. Why do I need to prove this? I went to these places," but has admitted he has not been able to find his academic certificates since his wife died three years ago.
If confirmed, Elliot's departure would be another blow in this most turbulent of years for Jamaican athletics. Five of the island's athletes who competed at London 2012 have since tested positive, including the former 100m world record holder Asafa Powell, the Olympic 4x100m silver medallist Sherone Simpson and the sprinter Veronica Campbell-Brown – and the World Anti-Doping Agency recently conducted an extraordinary audit into Jadco, the results of which are expected early next week.
However Fraser-Pryce insisted that the country's problems this year would not deflect from her achievements. "I don't think it has cast any shadows on my achievement because I know what I work for and it speaks for itself," she said. "But it can get discouraging at times when the persons who are supposed to take care of certain things are not doing their jobs. I have been tested a lot by Jadco and different parties wherever I go so there is nothing to hide."
Meanwhile Jamaican athletics has received support from the IAAF, with the organisation's deputy general secretary Nick Davies warning Wada that its "excessive" criticisms of the country's anti-doping's efforts had undermined the work being done to tackle doping on the island.
"It is excessive, and to be a bit cynical, I would link it with the need to create a lot of media attention in the lead up to the world anti-doping conference which is taking place in Johannesburg," said Davies.
Speaking to Jamaica's Gleaner newspaper, Davies made the point that Bolt and Yohan Blake had both been tested over a dozen times in 2013 before adding: "We should be careful about making a Wada problem with a national anti-doping agency a reason to question the integrity of Jamaican athletes as a whole."
Away from the Jamaican furore, Great Britain's Mo Farah is shortlisted for the men's award alongside Bolt and the Ukrainian high jumper Bohdan Bondarenko. Fraser-Pryce, New Zealand shot putter Valerie Adams and the hurdler Zuzana Hejnova from the Czech Republic make up the women's shortlist.
• Bolt and Fraser-Pryce expected to be named top athletes
• Fraser-Pryce threatens to strike over 'hurtful' comments
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce says Jamaica should back athletes who failed drugs tests because 'we dont know what happened'. Photograph: Olivier Morin/AFP/Getty ImagesSean IngleFriday 15 November 2013 18.42 GMT
World athletics' traditional end of year gala, amid the air kisses and champagne smiles of Monte Carlo, allows the globe's best athletes to gather and unwind at the sport's annual awards.
With Jamaica's star sprinters, Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, expected to be named male and female athlete of the year – the first time a country will have scooped both awards since Britain's Colin Jackson and Sally Gunnell in 1993 – it should be a time of celebration and revelment for the small Caribbean island. Instead the event, and Jamaica's likely triumph, has been overshadowed by ongoing debates over performance-enhancing drugs and a strike threat by Fraser-Pryce, the world's top female sprinter.
Fraser-Pryce's anger has been fuelled by comments from Jamaica's most senior drug tester, Dr Paul Wright, who claimed the island's high number of failed tests in 2013 might be the "tip of an iceberg". Fraser-Pryce, in turn, has called such comments "hurtful" and accused the country's authorities of "not speaking up for its athletes".
"When our athletes test positive for stimulants, you realise that when members of the JAAA or Jadco come and make accusations and say things about our athletes – hurtful stuff – that for each person the situation is different," she told reporters in Monte Carlo. "We don't know what happened, they make a mistake. That's just life. It's important for them as a federation and country to stand by their athletes because we don't know the circumstances."
While Fraser-Pryce was threatening to withdraw from international competition, Herb Elliott, Jamaica's team doctor at the 2008 Beijing Olympics before becoming chairman of Jadco in February 2012, was indicating he would resign following a Wall Street Journal report that questioned his academic qualifications. Elliot was already under pressure following revelations from Renée Anne Shirley, the former executive editor of Jadco, that there was just one random test in the country between March and July 2012 while the country's athletes prepared for the Olympic Games. But the Journal's report has led him to concede: "In the interest of Jadco and Jamaica, I would resign."
The paper quoted Jennifer Caplan, an official in the registrar's department at Columbia, as saying that there was no record of anyone with Elliot's name attaining a masters in chemistry at the university. It also claimed that a database of graduate-science theses by students at the Université Libre de Bruxelles did not include any work by Elliot.
Elliot has denied the allegations of fabricating his CV, saying: "My life is an open book. Why do I need to prove this? I went to these places," but has admitted he has not been able to find his academic certificates since his wife died three years ago.
If confirmed, Elliot's departure would be another blow in this most turbulent of years for Jamaican athletics. Five of the island's athletes who competed at London 2012 have since tested positive, including the former 100m world record holder Asafa Powell, the Olympic 4x100m silver medallist Sherone Simpson and the sprinter Veronica Campbell-Brown – and the World Anti-Doping Agency recently conducted an extraordinary audit into Jadco, the results of which are expected early next week.
However Fraser-Pryce insisted that the country's problems this year would not deflect from her achievements. "I don't think it has cast any shadows on my achievement because I know what I work for and it speaks for itself," she said. "But it can get discouraging at times when the persons who are supposed to take care of certain things are not doing their jobs. I have been tested a lot by Jadco and different parties wherever I go so there is nothing to hide."
Meanwhile Jamaican athletics has received support from the IAAF, with the organisation's deputy general secretary Nick Davies warning Wada that its "excessive" criticisms of the country's anti-doping's efforts had undermined the work being done to tackle doping on the island.
"It is excessive, and to be a bit cynical, I would link it with the need to create a lot of media attention in the lead up to the world anti-doping conference which is taking place in Johannesburg," said Davies.
Speaking to Jamaica's Gleaner newspaper, Davies made the point that Bolt and Yohan Blake had both been tested over a dozen times in 2013 before adding: "We should be careful about making a Wada problem with a national anti-doping agency a reason to question the integrity of Jamaican athletes as a whole."
Away from the Jamaican furore, Great Britain's Mo Farah is shortlisted for the men's award alongside Bolt and the Ukrainian high jumper Bohdan Bondarenko. Fraser-Pryce, New Zealand shot putter Valerie Adams and the hurdler Zuzana Hejnova from the Czech Republic make up the women's shortlist.