CAS 95/122 National Wheelchair Basketball Association (NWBA) / International Paralympic Committee (IPC)
- Doping of an athlete member of a team (dextropropoxyphene)
- Disqualification of a national basketball team from the
- Paralympics
- Principle of strict liability
1. Pursuant to the rules applicable in casu, the presence of a drug in the urine is sufficient to constitute an offence, irrespective of the route of administration.
2. If a competitor, member of a team, tests positive for doping during a tournament, does it mean that the match during which the infringement took place must be forfeited by that team or that the team must be disqualified from the entire tournament? Interpretation of a rule, the wording of which is controversial.
The Paralympic Athlete K competed in the USA Wheelchair Basketball Team at the 1992 Barcelona Paralympic Games.
In September 1992 the International Coordinating Committee of World Sports Organizations for the Disabled (ICC) reported an anti-doping rule violation against the Parathlete after his sample tested positive for the prohibited substance dextropropoxyphen.
Due to an injury the Athlete had used the painkiller Darvocet provided to him by his coach who had checked Darvocet on the list of banned drugs. However the coach did not know that one of the components in Darvocet is the prohibited substance dextropropoxyphene.
On 29 September 1992 the ICC decided that K. forfeit any medal with the recommendation to the IWBF to suspend him for six months.
As a consequence of the Athlete’s violation the ICC decided that the USA Basketball Team forfeit the match and to re-allocate their medals.
Hereafter in March 1995 the National Wheelchair Basketball Associaton (NWBA) appealed this decision with the Court of Arbitratio for Sport (CAS) against the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) as successor to the ICC.
The NWBA requested that the disqualification decision be reversed, and, in the alternative, either (a) that the USA wheelchair basketball team retain the 1992 Barcelona Paralympics championship, and that the USA team members retain the gold medals, or (b) that the USA wheelchair basketball team retain the 1992 Barcelona Paralympics championship, and that, with the exception of [K.], the USA team members retain the gold medals”.
The CAS Panel concludes that none of the NWBA’s filed contentions survive the Panel's analysis.
First, the ICC's reliance on Rule 1.1.4 was correct insofar as it declared the USA team to be the loser of the championship and therefore also of the gold medals.
Second, the ICC's conduct in administering its regime of penalties, while hesitant and confused, did not reach a level where it must be characterized as unfair or unreasonable; the result was the perfectly predictable consequence of a strict rule which the Panel can neither annul nor disregard.
That is also why the third contention must fail; as it stands, Rule 1.1.4 creates a regime that does not accommodate considerations of proportionality. Whether more flexible rules are desirable is a matter for debate within the appropriate governing bodies; they cannot be imposed by this Panel.
Therefore on 5 March 1996 the Court of Arbitration for Sport decides:
1.) Rejects each of the NWBA's alternative prayers for relief, and accordingly.
2.) Invites the Secretary General of CAS to dispose of the medals in his custody in accordance with the instructions of the IPC, and to release the cheque in the amount of US$ 2,000 to the IPC upon written certification by the latter that it will apply said amount to the cost of replacing the two missing medals.
3.) Makes no award of costs.
