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Anti-doping fight: is the new leniency program a blunt sword?

2021-04-28T03:22:32.594Z


Doping offenders should be encouraged to disclose the people behind them by means of a penalty remission. To this end, the anti-doping law is being expanded to include a leniency program. But there are doubts how promising that is.


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A doping control in Italy

Photo: ESPA Photo Agency / imago images / ZUMA Wire

When Jörg Jaksche confessed to SPIEGEL in 2007 that he had practiced blood doping for years to improve performance, he broke a taboo.

He was the first professional cyclist to provide insights into the shadowy world of a sport in which everyone involved still has an unspoken vow of silence.

Jaksche thus became an assistant to German investigative authorities - and their first prominent key witness.

Today he tells SPIEGEL: "It didn't help to make cycling cleaner."

Jaksche experienced what other confessed doping sinners later also experienced.

He was seen in the scene as a polluter.

Managers, teammates and cycling federations turned their backs on him.

He couldn't find a big team anymore - unlike other doping offenders like Alexander Vinokurow, who didn't chat, denied everything and was still able to celebrate successes after the scandal.

Jaksche, on the other hand, gave up the sport.

"Those who operate the doping system point their fingers at you," he says.

"But those who keep it alive mostly get away with it."

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Jaksche in the Team Telekom jersey (1999)

Photo: A3397 Gero Breloer / dpa

The federal government wants to shake hands with confessors like Jaksche. The anti-doping law, which has been in force since the end of 2015, will soon be expanded to include a leniency program. Based on the narcotics law, it is intended to encourage offenders to cooperate with the investigative authorities in order to expose doping offenders and accomplices, according to a draft law. In return, those who unpack should receive mitigation or impunity.

Politicians and doping investigators hope the regulation will be a great success.

The sports-political spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, Mahmut Özdemir, tells SPIEGEL that “they don't just want to get the doping athlete who hears their competitors, but also smash the structures and catch those behind them”.

The chief investigator of the World Anti-Doping Agency Wada, Günter Younger, speaks of a "useful tool to collect information about doping providers."

Wada chief investigator Gunter Younger: "Useful tool"

Photo: Denis Balibouse / REUTERS

So far, the anti-doping law's record has been meager.

Existing regulations gave doping athletes "no legal incentive" to reveal their own knowledge about perpetrators and assistants.

This emerges from the evaluation report of the anti-doping law from last year.

According to the report, there was "no significant information from athletes about relevant facts or people" from the field of top-class sport.

Nada, the National Anti-Doping Agency, provided more than two-thirds of reports of violations of the law;

a quarter comes from other criminal proceedings.

Isolated parallel world

The authorities rely on inside knowledge when screening criminal networks.

Without tips from circles in the scene, they hardly have a chance of accessing information in the isolated parallel world.

It is questionable that the leniency program will fundamentally change this.

Just recently, the criminal trial of Erfurt physician Mark Schmidt made it clear how difficult it will be.

He had helped a dozen cyclists and winter athletes doping their own blood.

The Munich Regional Court II sentenced him to four years and ten months in prison in January.

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Key witness Johannes Dürr

Photo: Roland Schlager / dpa

The former cross-country skier Johannes Dürr appeared as the key witness in the process.

The Austrian first revealed to ARD journalists and later to the authorities how Schmidt had provided him with growth hormones and blood treatments.

It was only through Dürr's statements that German and Austrian investigators managed to strike a blow against Schmidt's doping network during "Operation Aderlass".

Dürr's willingness to cooperate has brought nothing - on the contrary.

He was ostracized by the winter sports scene, and the Austrian Ski Association banned him from speaking on the subject of doping in his own ranks by means of an injunction.

Other witnesses who had provided insights into the fraud mechanisms of top-class sport during the trial fared no better either.

"Athletes Germany" demand comprehensive witness protection

Ex-professional cyclist Jaksche says that a leniency program only works if you guarantee anonymity to confessed athletes in order to protect them from being banished from the sport.

Key witnesses would also have to be able to work directly with the investigative authorities.

This is the only way to increase the fear of being blown among wire-pullers.

The association »Athleten Deutschland« argues in a similar direction: It is hoped that the possibility of a reduction in sentences will provide the right incentive.

The association also points out, "that a leniency program should go hand in hand with comprehensive witness protection in order to protect testifying athletes from possible reprisals and to increase the willingness to testify upstream."

A leniency program does not replace the expansion and publication of whistleblowing systems.

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Doping samples in the laboratory

Photo: FRANCK FIFE / AFP

Another sticking point for Jaksche are the sports associations.

They would have to be left out if professed athletes cooperate with the authorities.

Because they are often not interested in clarification, but only in protecting their image.

"Associations want a spectacular but scandal-free sport," says Jaksche.

Financially, they are too dependent on the success of the teams and their sponsors.

When Jaksche unpacked about his doping abuse, a high-ranking official of the UCI cycling association told him: Cycling is a family.

And in a family you deal with problems among yourself.

The message was clear: shut up, don't mention any names, carry on

.

The sport likes to keep to itself, little has changed in that.

Associations and those in charge like to present themselves as advocates of clean sport in public, and they sort out doping offenders as black sheep.

As long as multi-million dollar advertising deals and success beckon, performance-enhancing agents are ignored.

SPD politician Özdemir still believes in the leniency program: »Critics deny the investigators an additional instrument to expose the structures of doping.

The more instruments the authorities have at hand, the better. ”Chief Public Prosecutor Kai Gräber, who led the investigation into“ Operation Aderlass ”, regards the leniency program as a kind of equal opportunity.

With the help of the law, not only the man behind could buy impunity, but also the athlete who confesses.

Ex-professional cyclist Jaksche doubts that he would go public again today. He sounds disillusioned. “It didn't do anybody any good. The sport hasn't gotten any cleaner and I've been left out, ”he says. He has no doubts about being cheated on in cycling. The doping affairs around the former British Team Sky, now Ineos Grenadiers, are evidence of this.

Source: spiegel

All sports articles on 2021-04-28

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