Doping athletes may find themselves locked up in jail in Germany
THOMAS de Maiziere isn’t a name you will be familiar with, but he is likely to be one of the pivotal figures in world sport in 2016.
De Maiziere is the German Interior Minister – he also looks after sporting affairs – who this week announced new penal provisions for German sports dopers.
Those caught doping, including foreigners who compete in Germany, could face jail sentences of up to three years.
There’s a world of difference between a prison cell and a four-year ban from competition, so the shock-horror responses are unsurprising.
This stuff just got real.
The scales have shifted fundamentally in the fight against doping in recent months. The IAAF, whose record in this area has been questionable at best, took the unprecedented step of suspending Russia rather than just its athletes for doping.
With the Russian doping regime said to be institutionalised, the under-fire IAAF had no option but to act tough.
One consequence was that Russian president Vladimir Putin barked orders at Russian athletics chiefs to sort their nonsense out, especially if they are to compete at the Olympic Games in August.
Dissent isn’t a popular sport in Russia, so you can only assume that they are busy cleaning house at a rapid rate.
The move by the Germans is doubly significant.
A watershed has been reached: enough is enough.
This is the same bunch that stopped broadcasting the Tour de France on account of its doping culture. They mean business.
Bans, or the threat of such, have clearly had little effect.
The returns for doping, and the associated glory that follows, are clearly seen as worth the risk if you consider the numbers of athletes who get bust year after year.
Even being stigmatised, as former World Anti-Doping Association president John Fahey warned before the London Olympics, is no deterrent.
“You have to know that you’d have this stigma for the rest of your life. You are an outcast, an absolute disaster,” he warned, to little apparent effect.
Consider that if all 436 Russian athletes who competed in 24 sports at the 2012 Olympics are now under suspicion, as Wada claims, the total number of affected medals could be 81: 24 gold medals, 25 silver and 32 bronze.
As Wada said, the Games were effectively “sabotaged” by the Russians.
Jail changes everything, especially as the Germans have made it clear that penalties will also apply to those complicit in cheating: doctors, coaches and managers.
Modern sport, or at least the top end, is typically run as a slick affair.
No-one dopes arbitrarily; athletes plug into a network, a culture and a clique that encourages doping.
Those who feed the network need to be brought to book too. As they will: the new law says they can be jailed for up to 10 years.
Half-pregnant
Wada said the criminalisation of doping should be limited to those supplying athletes (otherwise known as the half-pregnant response).
That’s to say, athletes are less guilty than their suppli- ers, which is hogwash.
South Africa isn’t immune to doping with the SA Institute for Drug-Free Sport listing 30 offenders in its last annual report. The longest ban was for two years. Every year it’s the same.
Schoolboy rugby has long had a problem, particularly at Craven Week level, but only recently have testers been allowed into schools.
The prevalence of doping at school-going age suggests the sanctions aren’t working.
Jail is obviously out of the question for minors, but their suppliers ought to get the heavy-handed treatment.
Up the road, in Kenya, there are also moves to sort out what appears to be a systematic doping culture. Recently, athletics chief Isaiah Kiplagat warned that agents or coaches could be banned for life and even face prison sentences if their athletes are found guilty of doping.
“If you’re the one who injected or is found to have been contributing towards persuading the athletes to take banned substances, that’s a criminal offence.”
No-one can know if this new strong-arm approach will work in time for the Rio Games, but in the endless war on doping this is one of the biggest shifts.
Athletes must wise up – or face being locked up.