Drug Free Sport New Zealand (DFSNZ) has reported an anti-doping rule violation against Respondent after his sample tested positive for the prohibited substance Cannabis.
Respondent admitted the violation. The Tribunal accepted that the cannabis was taken for recreational purposes and not used for performance enhancing purposes. Respondent stated he did not intend to play in the NBL season next year, he was participating in basketball in other ways such as coaching.

The Tribunal finds that a suspension of two months beginning from the date of the decision is an effective sanction as it will prevent Respondent participating in sport in any capacity over that time period (including playing, refereeing, coaching or administrating).
Therefore the Sports Tribunal of New Zealand decides to impose a 2 month period of ineligibility on the Respondent, starting on 16 July 2008.

2007 Adverse Analytical Findings Reported by Accredited Laboratories / WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency). - Montreal : WADA, 2008

In May 2008 the Agenţia Naţională Anti-Doping (ANAD), the National Anti-Doping Agency of Romania, has reported an anti-doping rule violation against the Athlete Danut Samoila after his sample tested positive for the prohibited substance 19-norandrosterone (nandrolone).

Therefore on 15 July 2008 the ANAD Sanction Committee decides to impose a 2 year period of ineligibility on the Athlete, starting on the date of the decision.

In June 2008 the Agenţia Naţională Anti-Doping (ANAD), the National Anti-Doping Agency of Romania, has reported an anti-doping rule violation against the Athlete Georgia Carla Waltner after her sample tested positive for the prohibited substance hydrochlorothiazide.

Therefore on 15 July 2008 the ANAD Sanction Committee decides to impose a 2 year period of ineligibility on the Athlete, starting on the date of the decision.

Facts
The International Rugby Board (IRB) alleges Jovan Popuke (the player) for a violation of the Anti-Doping Rules. Jovan Pupuke ("the player") is a rugby player who plays most of his sport in New Zealand where he has lived all his life. Because of his ancestry, he was selected to represent the Cook Islands at the IRB Junior World Trophy Tournament held in Santiago, Chile. On 19 April 2008, following the Cook Islands/Romania match, he provided an in-competition urine sample. His sample tested positive on a metabolite of cannabis. Cannabis is a prohibited substance according to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and regarded as a specified substance.

History
In response to questioning, the player discounted any suggestion that he smoked cannabis to enhance his performance. He did so while socially interacting with his three friends at a party during the evening of 29/30 March 2008. The player has established on a balance of probabilities that his use of cannabinoids was not intended to enhance sport performance and, if so, to decide the sanction that should be imposed for a first violation by the Player.

Decision
A period of suspension of four months reduced to three months on account of the player's early acknowledgment of guilt, his expressed regret and remorse that his conduct has tarnished the image of rugby in the Cook Islands.

Costs
Written submissions should be provided on time.

Fight against doping : statistical data 2007 / National Anti-Doping Council Portugal. - Lisbon : Conselho Nacional Antidopagem (CNAD), 2008

Legal Opinion on the Conformity of the Exclusion of « Team Athletes » from Organized Training during their Period of Ineligibility with Swiss Law, including the General Principles of Proportionality and Equal Treatment / Rigozzi, Antonio. - World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), 2008

Contents:

I. PRELIMINARY COMMENTS
1. Qualifications of the Author of this Opinion
2. Independence and Disclaimer
3. The Question Posed, the Document(s) Reviewed, and the Issues Addressed
II. THE INTERACTION BETWEEN ANTI-DOPING RULES AND THE RELEVANT PROVISIONS OF SWISS LAW
1. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the World Anti-Doping Code (WADA Code)
1.2 The Adoption and the Implementation of the WADA Code
1.3 The Rationale of the WADA Code
1.4 The Main Features of the WADA Code
1.5 Status During Ineligibility
a. Under the 2003 WADA Code
b. Under the 2009 WADA Code
2. Protection of Personality Rights
2.1 Protection from excessive commitments (Article 27(2) CC)
a. Excessive Duration?
b. Excessive Object or Scope?
c. Conclusion
2.2 Protection against infringements of personality rights by third parties (Article 28 CC)
a. Legal or Statutory Provision
b. Consent
c. Overriding Private or Public Interest
d. Conclusion
2.3 Due process
a. Compliance with the principle of legality
b. Fair Trial
2.4 Fundamental Principles of Law
a. Proportionality
b. (Un)equal Treatment..
3. The Argument of Public Policy
Ill. GENERAL CONCLUSION AND ANSWER TO THE QUESTION POSED

CAS 2007/A/1284 & CAS 2007/A/1308 World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) v. Federación Colombiana de Natación (FECNA) & Lina Maria Prieto

• Aquatics (swimming)
• Doping (norandrosterone; testosterone)
• Direct application of the rules of an International Federation to athletes
• Appealable decision before the CAS
• Applicable law by tacit agreement of the parties
• Condition for the admissibility of the appeal
• Consequences of an IF’s delay to communicate a decision to WADA
• Duty of the athlete to ensure that no prohibited substance enters his/her body

1. Provided that a National Federation is subject to the rules/regulations of an International Federation, such regulations and in particular the doping control rules can be deemed directly applicable to athletes. This may be either through an agreement/license or through the accreditation for a specific competition, or through a chain of references to the International Federation rules in by-laws or other regulations. This kind of factual assumption - based on experience and the fact that competitors generally submit themselves to all applicable regulations of the relevant competition (including doping rules) by their participation in the competition - has already been confirmed by CAS precedents.

2. The concept of an appealable decision (including an appeal against the failure to make a decision) has been defined in the well-established case law of the CAS. In this respect, the form of the communication has no relevance to determine whether there exists a decision or not; furthermore for a communication to be a decision, the communication must contain a ruling, whereby the body issuing the decision intends to affect the legal situation of the addressee of the decision or other parties. Neither the lack of knowledge of the form in which the official decision has been rendered nor the fact that a formal (written) decision with reasons has not yet been handed in, changes this in any way.

3. The election of governing law by tacit agreement is possible. For instance, by their behaviour, the parties could have clearly given their assent to the application of a specific law. Nevertheless, to admit this, it must undoubtedly emerge through the parties’ conclusive acts, that they agreed on the applicable law when they entered into the disputed contractual relationship.

4. In cases where a provision refers to the “receipt of the decision” for defining the time limit of the appeal (in contrast to the term “notification/notice of the decision”), this must be interpreted in a sense of a mere and common “time limit provision”. In no way does it indicate a requirement of admissibility to the effect that a party entitled to appeal cannot lodge an appeal before the actual receipt of the relevant formal decision. Rather, if there are no doubts as regards the existence of a decision, the term “receipt” has to be interpreted in a way that the “dies a quo” of the time limit is at least – as “a minus” of a receipt – the notice of the decision.

5. A delay of an International Federation to pass to WADA the information of the existence of the decision cannot be held against WADA. Should it be otherwise, it would imply for WADA to intervene in national cases and take measures or make inquiries, which obviously fall into the competence of the National or the International Federations.

6. It is each athlete’s personal duty to ensure that no prohibited substance enters his/her body. For an athlete, to allege that he/she made a few researches on the internet before he/she ingested nutritional supplements allegedly containing the prohibited substance is not enough to meet the standard of care expected of a top-level athlete, i.e. obtain assurances from his/her physician, pharmacist or team doctor that the supplements do not contain a prohibited substance.

In May 2006 the Colombian Swimming Federation (FECNA) reported an anti-doping rule violation against the swimmer Lina Maria Prieto after she tested positive for the prohibited substances 19-norandrosterone (Nandrolone) and with a T/E ratio above the WADA threshold. Consequently the FECNA Disciplinary Committee decides to impose a 1 year period of ineligibility on the Athlete.

Following deliberations between FINA and FECNA the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) appealed in April 2007 the FECNA decision with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

WADA requested the Panel to set aside the Appealed Decision and to impose a 2 year period of inelibility on the Athlete. WADA contended that the Athlete had committed an anti-doping rule violation and failed to explain how she tested positive.

In view of the evidence the Sole Arbitrator has no reason to put into question the quality and the results of the sample analysis conducted by the WADA-accredited laboratory. Ms Lina Maria Prieto must be considered as having committed a doping offence involving a prohibited substance governed by the sanctions in article DC 10 of the FINA Doping Control Rules and must take responsibility for it.

The Sole Arbitrator deems that Ms Lina Maria Prieto was unable to establish how the prohibited substance entered her system. Hence, elimination or reduction of the period of ineligibility based on exceptional circumstances cannot be applied and a minimum sanction of 2 years (for a first violation) must be imposed according to the rules in force.

Therefore the Court of Arbitration for Sport decides on 8 July 2008:

1.) The appeals filed by the World Anti-Doping Agency in the present matter are partially upheld.

2.) The appealed decision of the FECNA in the present matter is set aside.

3.) Ms Lina Maria Prieto is guilty of an Anti-Doping Rule violation committed during the Campeonato Internacional Ciudad De Cali, which took place between 7 and 9 April 2006 in Cali, Colombia.

4.) Ms Lina Maria Prieto shall be declared ineligible for two years. The period of ineligibility to be imposed upon her shall commence on 18 May 2006.

5.) Ms Lina Maria Prieto’s results obtained during the 2006 Campeonato Internacional Ciudad De Cali and or/during the above-mentioned period of ineligibility, her eventual medals, her points and prizes are forfeited.

(…)

9. All other motions or prayers for relief are dismissed.

In April 2008 the International Rugby Board (IRB) has reported an anti-doping rule violation against the Georgian junior rugby player Ladiko Chochishvili after his sample tested positive for the prohibited substance 19-norandrosterone (Nandrolone). After notification a provisional suspension was ordered. The Athlete filed a statement in his defence and he was heard for the IRB Judicial Committee.

The Athlete admitted the violation and denied the intentional use of a prohibited substance. He stated that previously he had consulted his doctor in Georgia because of food poisoning symptoms and he had received several injections and taken pills without knowledge that a banned substance was administered. The Athlete didn’t know what his doctor had prescribed and attempts hereafter to contact the doctor were unsuccessful.

The Committee did not accept the Athlete’s statement and finds that he failed to produce relevant evidence about the prescribed medication and his effort to contact the doctor in an unnamed village in Georgia in his attempt to establish exceptional circumstances.

Without grounds for a reduced sanction the IRB Judicial Committee decides on 4 July 2008 to impose a 2 year period of ineligibility on the Athlete starting on the date of the provisional suspension, i.e. on 25 April 2008.

Annual Report of the Anti-Doping Unit of the Irish Sports Council for 2007 / Irish Sports Council (ISC). - Dublin : ISC, 2008

Contents:

- Visions of the Programme
- Background to the Programme
- Anti-Doping Committee
- Testing
- Testing Programme
- Unavailable for Testing
- Whereabouts
- Sample Collection Personnel
- International
- Conferences and Meetings
- WADA
- Education
- Nutrition and Peak Performance Conference
- Asthma Society Education
- Educational Resources
- Drug Enquiries directly to ADU
- Eirpharm
- Education Seminars
- Research
- Research Sub-Committee
- Social Behavioural Study/UCD
- GP Survey 3