WADA to investigate Jamaican doping claims
Track and Field: A year after Usain Bolt made history at the London Olympics and declared himself “a living legend,” a bombshell dropped largely unnoticed in The Gleaner, the Caribbean’s oldest newspaper: A former director of the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission alleged the island didn’t drug-test its athletes for entire months before they dazzled at the Summer Games.
Statistics compiled by former JADCO Executive Director Renee Anne Shirley indicated a near-complete breakdown in the agency’s out-of-competition testing from January 2012 to the July opening of the Olympics.
In an interview with The Associated Press, JADCO chairman Herbert Elliott dismissed Shirley’s figures as lies and described her as “a bit demented” and “a Judas.”
But the World Anti-Doping Agency confirmed to the Associated Press that there was, as Shirley asserted, “a significant gap of no testing” by JADCO as athletes trained for London – and that it would launch an “extraordinary” audit of the Jamaican agency.
Jamaican stars didn’t go completely untested before London. Track and field’s governing body, the IAAF, says it extensively tested elite Jamaicans, including Bolt more than 12 times last year. History’s fastest human has never failed a drug test.
But the exact extent of testing on Bolt and his teammates is tightly guarded. Bolt’s agent, Ricky Simms, told AP “he’s tested almost every week,” but the public has no way of verifying that.
The IOC tested the top five finishers after each event in London. That means Bolt and teammates Yohan Blake, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, and Veronica Campbell-Brown must have been tested multiple times.
WADA Director General David Howman said its new action is a direct response to the problems Shirley exposed and to positive doping tests this year for five athletes, including former world 100M record holder Asafa Powell, who ran for Jamaica in London.
Detroit edges Boston behind Gustavsson
NHL: Stephen Weiss and Daniel Cleary scored second-period goals, reserve goaltender Jonas Gustavsson made 28 saves in his first action of the season and the Detroit Red Wings edged the Bruins 3-2 in Boston.
Henrik Zetterberg had the other score for Detroit (4-2), which won its second straight.
The Bruins had a two-man, power-play advantage for nearly 2 minutes early in the third period, but couldn’t mount a comeback.
• Capitals use late flurry to burn Oilers: Joel Ward, Alex Ovechkin and Troy Brouwer scored goals in less than four minutes of the second period, and the Washington Capitals snapped a three-game losing streak with a 4-2 win over the visiting Edmonton Oilers.
The Capitals scored four times on 20 shots against Edmonton goalie Jason LaBarbera, a former Spokane Chiefs backstop.
• Wild keep Sabres winless: Jason Pominville scored the winning goal in his return to Buffalo and the Minnesota Wild (3-1-2) beat the winless Sabres 2-1 in Buffalo, N.Y.
Buffalo (0-6-1) tied a franchise record for longest winless streak to start a season.
Arkansas AD chosen as committee chair
College football: Jeff Long, Arkansas’ athletic director since 2008, will be the first chairman of the College Football Playoff selection committee, and the rest of the 13-member panel that will decide which teams play for the 2014 national championship will be officially revealed Wednesday.
A news conference will be held Wednesday at the College Football Playoff’s new offices in Irving, Texas, with Long and executive director Bill Hancock unveiling the rest of the members.
The committee will pick the four teams to play in the national semifinals in the new postseason system that will replace the Bowl Championship Series after this season. The winners will play about a week later for the national championship.
Michael Waltrip Racing cutting back
Auto racing: Michael Waltrip Racing will run only two full-time cars next season because of the loss of sponsor NAPA, part of the fallout from its attempts to manipulate a race to get Martin Truex Jr. into the Chase.
Truex, crew chief Chad Johnston and 15 percent of the workforce were told they could negotiate with other teams.
• Blood clot forces Vickers out for season: Brian Vickers will miss the rest of the NASCAR season because of a blood clot in his right calf. The clot was found after an examination and he was placed on blood-thinning medication that will keep him from racing.
FIFA bans several El Salvador players
Miscellany: FIFA has given worldwide lifetime bans to 14 El Salvador national team players who already had been suspended by their federation for match-fixing.
FIFA says global sanctions also were extended against two players who received bans of 18 months and six months.
• SEC selects site of future basketball tournaments: The Tennessean has reported the Southeastern Conference will be announcing 12 straight SEC basketball tournaments, six new men’s tournaments and three women’s, that will be held in Nashville, Tenn.