After three very high profile cases of world and Olympic champions caught violating FINA’s anti-doping rules and getting off with reduced punishment the Australian Swimmers Association (ASA) felt it time for their voice to be heard.
The ASA has made a formal complaint to both Swimming Australia and their country’s FINA bureau member Matt Dunn.
“We’re concerned about the high number of positive tests in Russia and why there are rules for some and not for others,’’ Daniel Kowalski, the ASA General Manager, told the Australian.
The most glaring concern for the ASA has been FINA’s lack of transparency when it comes to publishing which swimmers have been tested and when those tests have been administered.
“One reason that there is a lack of confidence is that the drug-testing is not being published,’’ Kowalski told the Australian.
“Our swimmers are being tested a lot, some are getting a knock on the door at 11 o’clock at night, but they don’t know if swimmers in other countries are being tested the same way. They don’t know if foreign swimmers who train in Australia are being tested while they’re here.’’
FINA has not published an up to date list since 2013, but in what is most likely a reactionary move have said that the list would be made public within days.
The transparency is one issue, but the other issue that is a cause of mistrust is the lack of consistency of punishment.
There has been cause for suspicion in how the punishment has been handled in the cases of Sun Yang, Yuliya Efimova and Park Tae Hwan. In all cases the length of the punishment has been reduced from what is considered to be the standard.