JADCO admit to errors in Campbell-Brown case

JADCO admit to errors in Campbell-Brown case

The Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO) has admitted to procedural breaches during its collecting of a sample from two-time 200 metres Olympic champion Veronica Campbell-Brown in 2013.

Jamaica's Veronica Campbell-Brown competes in the women 60 m semi final heat 2 event at the IAAF World Indoor Athletics Championships in the Ergo Arena in the Polish coastal town of Sopot, on March 9, 2014

The 31-year-old Jamaican athletics great's sample taken at last May’s Jamaica Invitational Meet in Kingston, tested positive for a diuretic HCT and resulted in her being handed a two-year ban by the IAAF, which was overturned in February by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

CAS were scathing in their written report, released on Tuesday, outlining the reasons for finding in Campbell-Brown's favour.

They described as 'deplorable and gives rise to the most serious concerns about the overall integrity of the Jamaican Athletics Administrative Association's (JAAA) anti-doping processes, as exemplified in this case by the flaws in JADCO's (Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission) sample collection and its documentation".

JADCO issued a statement on Wednesday admitting the error, saying “JADCO acknowledges that some procedures carried out in the sample collection process on May 4, 2013, at the Jamaica Invitational Meet at the National Stadium, in Kingston, Jamaica, were inconsistent with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) International Standards. Specifically, no partial sample kits were used in the collection process."

It came out during the hearing that Campbell-Brown -- only the second woman athlete after East German Barbel Wockel (1976/80) to win successive 200m Olympic titles when she won in 2004 and 2008 -- failed to pass the required amount of urine on her first attempt. She was allowed to keep the container to pass the additional amount, which is against international standards.

Doping Control Officer Dr. Paul Wright testified at the Campbell-Brown hearing that WADA told them that if the required amount of urine was not passed on the first attempt, it could be kept for the additional amount.

However, JADCO said: “We therefore, take this opportunity to state that there is no documentation in existence at JADCO, indicating that WADA gave the Commission permission to deviate from the standard, which is applicable to all signatories of the WADA Code.”

JADCO added “Currently, the restructured JADCO, working in concert with its recently appointed Chairman and Board of Commissioners, continues to refine and upgrade its operational procedures to remove any weaknesses in the system.

"As a result, we are continuing to recruit qualified employees to fill the necessary staff vacancies and assist in improving JADCO’s testing capabilities and public education programme.”

Campbell-Brown -- two-time world outdoor individual gold medalist in the 100m in 2007 and then the 200m in 2011 -- was one of several high profile Jamaican athletes to fail drugs tests last year.

Former men's 100m world record holder Asafa Powell and hsi training partner 2008 Olympic women's 100 metres silver medallist Sherone Simpson received 18-month bans from a JADCO tribunal last week qfter testing positive for a banned stimulant, oxilofrine.

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