NRL and drugs: adopt the Olympic standard?

On Friday May 4th, John Coates, head of the Australian Olympic Committee, announced an eye-opening policy on drugs.

In short the AOC will expel any athlete from an Olympic team if they fail to comply with ASADA in every way, even if doing so might incriminate themselves or expose themselves to a penalty.

In other words, reveal all when interviewed and be seen to be doing so too. This is turning up the heat if ever I’ve seen it.

This is the new gold standard. The Olympic standard.

I wonder if the NRL will adopt such a policy. I say they should or drop drug testing altogether. It’s black and white for me, you are either all-out to destroy drug taking or you’re not.

If you’re in between, you’re wasting time.

At the moment Cronulla and their players have lawyered-up and are playing hardball. Lance Armstrong was hounded for years until he (barely) admitted his wrongdoings to Oprah.

Cronulla, if you’ve done nothing wrong just cooperate.

Now we all know that a person can be tried and found guilty of murder, even if the body of the victim is never found. It’s also fair to say that an athlete can be suspended from a sport in the absence of a positive drug test if other evidence strongly supports it.

Many NRL fans think ASADA is the bad guy. I say they are like the police looking for the body.

They clearly think the murder has occurred and have some circumstantial evidence but are just inches away from a jury, a judge and a “guilty”. They’re just unable to make a witness or two reveal all.

No matter what happens in the end with this investigation, I contend no fans will be gained or lost from the code. But what I detest is paying lip service.

If the NRL is real they need to adopt the AOC policy and devise other measures to turn up the heat on drug cheats or forget testing altogether.

The drug cheats out there are always ahead of the testers, that’s why the AOC are doing this.