Examination of Witnesses (Questions 340-359)
4 MAY 2004
Ms Guinevere Batten, Mr Giles B Long, and Mr Adam
Pengilly
Q340 Chris Bryant: What do you think
about the labelling of medicinal drugs that can be bought over
the counter? Obviously it is a different list in different countries.
You can buy some things over the counter and in some countries
you cannot. Do you think there is sufficient labelling? Would
you welcome some kind of kite-mark, if it could be agreed, on
an international basis?
Ms Batten: Yes. This is one of
the highlights of the issues, the areas on which we spend a lot
of time talking. Most of our athletes are spending quite a long
time abroad. The support structure that has currently been available
in Britain through UK Sport has only been linked to British drugs,
and we worked, and we are still trying quite strongly to try and
push for better support in that area. From my own primary example,
I am three weeks out of the Olympic Games. I am in France. I go
to a doctor for antibiotics. I ring back to my national governing
body to go onto the drugs help-line to identify that the drugs
that I have been prescribed were legitimate. Of course, they were
not. They were French drugs at the time. Our doctor was on holiday
in Spain. She was then able to ring through to me, about 12 hours
later, to tell me not to take the medication that I had been prescribed,
but I had actually gone ahead and taken one first round of that.
So it is a very difficult situation. It would have been appalling
for me and for my fellow team members if I had then tested positive
and was unable to go to the Olympic Games purely for an issue
in that sort of area.
Q341 Chris Bryant: Were you telling me
a real story or a hypothetical story?
Ms Batten: No, that was a real
story. That happened to me prior to Sydney, and that happens every
single day for athletes travelling abroad.
Q342 Chris Bryant: So some kind of kite-mark,
but it would have to be an international one for it to be genuinely
effective?
Ms Batten: Ideally linked to something
like WADA, or something like that which was world-wide, but very,
very difficult.
Mr Pengilly: Alan Baxter is classic
example at Salt Lake with his Vicks inhaler where they are slightly
different, the American version, to the UK version, which is slightly
significant.
Q343 Chris Bryant: I should say, incidentally,
when I was asking about Night Nurse last time I was on Night Nurse
myself! The relationship between illegal drugs, in other words
cannabis, cocaine and so on, where do you sit on whether WADA
should be taking those out of the code and saying that they are
not going to be testing for those?
Ms Batten: For me personally,
I feel that I have not got a problem with them testing those drugs
because I feel they are against the law anyway, and if there is
an element of us having responsibility for our sports and for
the young people who are coming behind us, then I think there
will be a positive way that we could actually say we are tested
for these drugs and we come out clean. My other concern would
be that often when you look at the list, and I do not deem to
be an expert, sometimes old drugs are on there and you think,
"Why are they on there?" They may be on there for reasons
presumably, they may be masking, there are a lot of reasons why
those drugs are on there, and often it is not black and white.
Individually I tend to accept what is on that list.
Q344 Chris Bryant: Take me through the
regimes for the Winter Olympics, because one of the issues that
has come up before us is in athletics. The moment you come off,
you have finished your 100 metres, you are escorted from that
moment to the moment that the test is done. We have seen that
in some other sports it is not quite the same. What is it for
the Winter Olympics?
Mr Pengilly: At the actual Olympics—
Q345 Chris Bryant: For the Olympics itself
I understand it is different, but for winter sports I mean?
Mr Pengilly: The same sort of
thing applies: someone will notify that you are about to be tested.
You are normally due to be tested within an hour. That person
is supposed to stay with you for that time. Often you have got
some sort of ceremony in the meantime, so they will often stay
with you through that. It depends on how the program works, but
that person should remain with you most of the time. Generally
it does happen, although in some circumstances it does not, which
is why having regulations throughout using the WADA code is really
important, because I would be quite confident to be tested in
the UK by UK Sport, but not always in other countries where the
system might not be so stringent.
Q346 Chris Bryant: And out of competition
testing: what happens?
Mr Pengilly: The tester will come
to you, wherever you are training, or at home, and again stay
with you until you are able to give a sample. It should go through
the process hook, line and sinker, so to speak. I think it varies
from sport to sport, but most athletes these days are reasonably
well educated and certainly once they get to a high level, but
perhaps not all at a developmental stage with, say, a long-term
athlete development.
Q347 Rosemary McKenna: Can I probe a
bit on the issue about nasal spray and the inadvertent taking
of a banned substance that is not in the UK version? Can the use
of that have been so significant as to be detectable? Would that
not suggest that there is quite a lot of use, if it was significant?
Mr Pengilly: Do you mean how significant
was the methyl-amphetamine in terms of an athlete's performance?
Q348 Rosemary McKenna: Yes?
Mr Pengilly: The BOA spent a lot
of time with the IOC about it post Athens. I am not au fait
with all of the details, but basically there is an alpha and a
beta type methyl amphetamine. One is a stimulant and one acts
not as a stimulant but it is just recognised as one drug within
the banned list. The one actually within the Vicks inhaler that
Alan took was not a stimulant, and also it was in such a small
amount that, even if it was, the doctors all agreed, it would
have had no effect.
Q349 Rosemary McKenna: Does that not
bring into disrepute the system of testing if an insignificant
amount is enough to strip someone of a medal and all the concentrated
effort is on that and all the publicity is on that and not serious
drug-taking?
Mr Pengilly: Where do you draw
the line? Different things will work differently for different
people. The line the Athletes Commission have always held is if
something is in your body and it is not supposed to be there,
you are cheating, basically, and, mistake or non-mistake, unfortunately
that is what happened. You cannot have any grey areas with this;
it has got to be black and white unfortunately.
Q350 Rosemary McKenna: It was simply
because you could prove that he was not aware that it was in the—
Mr Pengilly: Yes, he got stripped
of the medal, but he did not get stripped of his points. It did
not affect his subsequent career or the lottery funding, just
the medal, because of what they proved in the subsequent hearings.
Q351 Rosemary McKenna: Can I move on
slightly to another issue, and that is role-models in a wider
sense. Clearly you three give up your time to help regulate the
sport, which is excellent and very important. Could athletes not
be persuaded to give up more of their time to be in the public
eye as role-models to help young people and to promote a better
way of life and a healthier lifestyle?
Ms Batten: I think you need to
take individual sports in a sports basis. For example, if I took
you through a typical day for an endurance rower, they would have
somewhere in the region of about two hours available where they
should be sleeping if they are out there to perform properly at
the Olympic Games; and the margins between victory in a gold medal
to coming fourth are tiny, and if we are expecting athletes to
go out on a regular basis into schools, sometimes having travelled
quite a long distance, at a time which fit the school timetables—schools
have great difficulty with that—also going into an environment
where there is a high number of viruses and a lot of athletes
. . .
Q352 Rosemary McKenna: Yes, I taught
for a number of years. I understand that.
Ms Batten: It is quite a high
risk thing to do. I know a lot of athletes that do go out and
do go into schools. I did quite regularly when I was a competing
athlete and still do now I have retired.
Q353 Rosemary McKenna: Is there not a
balance?
Ms Batten: There needs to be a
balance.
Q354 Rosemary McKenna: Particularly if
they are receiving government funding or lottery funding, there
is a balance to be struck. I do think it is very important that
young people see achievement, see success and see role-models?
Ms Batten: It is very, very important.
When I look back through my career the role-models that there
were at the time were very, very important to me, and if I had
met them in a physical context it would have made a huge difference;
but if you look at the amount the typical athlete is getting,
it is not a huge amount of money. I came out of my sport; I had
no pension; I had paid no National Insurance contributions and
it was a very, very difficult time to come out. So you could see
it is hard. You are almost a sub-sub-level of society as an athlete,
at the same time being on the front of the television and the
papers.
Q355 Rosemary McKenna: You are not getting
an income from the sport either.
Ms Batten: It is a very interesting
area.
Q356 Mr Flook: Did you bring your silver
medal with you?
Ms Batten: I am sorry. Next time!
Q357 Mr Flook: To all three of you. Do
you think there are significant differences in the way that anti-doping
matters are dealt with relative to the different sports? Mr Pengilly,
having been stupid enough, as I have, to throw yourself down an
ice track on a skeleton thing, it would not make any difference
if you were caught having taken recreational drugs or any type
of drugs in comparison to, say, a rower or a swimmer?
Mr Pengilly: I am sorry. I do
not understand.
Q358 Mr Flook: Is there any difference
in the way that the anti-doping matters are handled in different
sports? In other words, one of the things we have seen or read
from various groups that have sent us their submissions is that
the athletes from non-professional sports, particularly talking
about soccer and rugby league, weight-lifting, they are saying
that when they are dealt with they are dealt with seemingly in
a different way. Does that matter? A more lenient way might be
the steer?
Mr Pengilly: If you are talking
about with regard to a positive result, yes.
Q359 Mr Flook: I am?
Mr Pengilly: It is one of the
topics of debate and obviously something that you guys are going
to have to discuss a lot, and something that the FA touched on
as well, about: are you the prosecutor whereas normally you would
be the supporting arm? There is also a conflict of interest as
well, in that while your national governing body is dependent
on its programme funding, because of the results that the athletes
are obtaining, they are therefore then, if there is a positive
result, having to switch around and then prosecute, but if that
positive result is upheld and the athlete is then banned, they
are obviously going to suffer because of that. We would be keen
to see some sort of independent prosecution type of thing. We
discussed this earlier. One of the issues is that it does not
take up a huge amount of resource because obviously there are
a lot of athletes and a lot of smaller governing bodies, in particular,
who do not get—who are somewhat—the resource is quite
small, and, therefore, if there was a lot of funding taken out
for this body to be doing, say, the prosecuting, it would negatively
impact the support that the athletes in particular and also the
governing bodies are getting.
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