Editorial | JADCO cannot just say sorry

Alexander Williams, the chairman of the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO), has rightly apologised for the agency’s drug-testing blunder that cost Jamaica the world record for the under-20 girls’ 4x100 metres relay. But Mr Williams must know that merely conceding that JADCO “dropped the ball” is not enough. He must now say who will be held accountable, and how.

On the face of it, that should be JADCO’s governors and the agency’s senior management. For what happened at Jamaica’s National Stadium on April 17 was not a simple clerical error. It was a fundamental breach of global athletics’ anti-doping protocols, of which JADCO ought to have been cognisant, as well as being fully aware that failure to adhere to the global rules is undermining the integrity of global athletics. Further, not only was Jamaica deprived of another official world record in athletics, but four young women, who strained sinew and mental power in the effort, were ultimately victimised by JADCO’s cock-up.

What makes this episode especially egregious and upsetting is that nine years ago, during its early life, JADCO came under global criticisms for not meticulously adhering to testing rules, casting an unfair shadow over Jamaican athletes. The lessons of that episode ought to have been well learnt.

At the time of the April incident, the Jamaican quartet of Serena Cole, the twins, Tina and Tia Clayton, and Kerrica Hill already held the world record for 42.94 seconds for the under-20 (U20) girls’ 4x100 relay, which they set in August 2021 at the World U-20 Championships in Kenya. Three of the young women – the Clayton girls and Ms Cole – remained record-setting quartet at the April Carifta Games in Kingston. They were joined by Brianna Lyston, a rising young star in Jamaica athletics, who is dominant in the 200 metres among high-school athletes. Speculation was expectedly rife over whether this group would break the months-old world record. They apparently did, clocking 42.58 seconds for the relay.

DECLINED TO RATIFY

However, it emerged last week that World Athletics had declined to ratify the record. It turns out that Tina Clayton, who had won the 100 metres race the previous day and had been tested for drugs by JADCO, was not tested after the 4x100 relay. This was decided on the basis of a JADCO rule that athletes were not tested more than once in a 24-hour period. It must be absolutely clear that, as she was required and instructed to do, Ms Clayton turned up and expected to be tested. Nothing of this was her fault.

It is common ground that JADCO’s action was in contradiction of “oral and written instructions’’ by the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association on the protocols of the event.

Mr Williams fully accepts that international standards do not bar JADCO from testing an athlete twice in a day.“This was a directive that exists in JADCO unbeknown to me…,” Mr Williams said. “… And, apparently, this is what led to the decision not to test this particular athlete on the 17th (of April).”

It is appreciated that as chairman of JADCO’s board, Mr Williams would not be privy to every operational detail of the agency, or how the staff interpret and perform their jobs. However, drug testing in global athletics is such a sensitive, and increasingly political, matter that the governors of testing bodies and the administrators of athletics organisations are expected to have intimate knowledge of drug-testing regimes and how they are applied in the domestic environments. Indeed, this was the standard to which sports administrators and drug-testing laboratories in Russia were held in that country’s doping scandal.

SCALE A HIGH BAR

So, on this particular matter, Mr Williams will understand, and be sympathetic, if he and his fellow board members and their executive director were asked to scale a high bar in convincing people that ignorance of the internal rule of ‘no testing more than once in 24 hours’ is exculpatory. It is expected that JADCO’s testing regime is codified and periodically reviewed by its board, in which event the scientific basis of ‘not more than one test in 24 hours’ ought to have been explained.

In 2013, JADCO faced a major scandal when its former executive director, Anne Shirley, revealed that it had done limited out-of-season testing of Jamaican athletes. The World Anti-Doping Agency came in to help JADCO put its house in order. Many in world athletics whispered.

Happily, Mr Williams has not behaved with the hubris of the governors who were in place then and initially resisted the calls for reforms and transparency. Mr Williams agrees that what happened was “a blunder” and was “far-reaching”. He has promised to do “all I can to ensure that this does not happen again”.

Good! But who is to be held to account? And by what process?