Cycling: Dope penalty angers our sports bosses

By TERRY MADDAFORD

Sports chiefs have reacted angrily to the "slap with a wet bus ticket" penalty handed Lee Vertongen after he tested positive for drugs at the national cycling championships in Dunedin in March.

The failure of the Cycling New Zealand-appointed tribunal to slap the mandatory two-year ban on Vertongen after he returned a positive to the amphetamine methylenedioxymethamphetamine (also known as MDMA or Ecstasy) has alarm bells ringing at the New Zealand Sports Drug Agency and Hillary Commission.

Agency boss Graeme Steel was flabbergasted at the tribunal's ruling that the infraction deserved a "lesser penalty" because the drug was used "therapeutically."

"That ruling means our work is being undermined," said Steel, who administers the agency's $900,000-a-year operation.

"That decision is completely outside the parameters which would normally govern such infractions. The minimum penalty in this case is a two-year ban."

Hillary Commission chief executive Peter Dale said the tribunal's decision to "formally discipline" Vertongen, disqualifying him from the race and stripping him of any prizemoney and medals, could bring New Zealand's testing programme into question.

"I see it as 10 to 12 years' hard work being undone," Dale said. "We are certainly looking at future funding for cycling. We depend on the goodwill of all sports to act responsibly in these cases.

"I have had some pretty unhelpful discussions with Cycling New Zealand over this matter. We are considering suspending their funding - which, in conjunction with money from the Sports Foundation, amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars - until they get it sorted out.

"The decision is sending the wrong message," Dale said. "It says in New Zealand you can use 'inadvertent use' as a reason for getting out of what should be the mandatory penalty. We are genuinely concerned about that.

"To say using such a serious drug for a specific therapeutic use is okay is drawing a long bow.

"For many years we have been a leading anti-drug advocate. I don't want to see all that good work thrown out the window by decisions like this."

Vertongen, represented at the April 20 tribunal hearing by Wellington barrister and former first vice-president of the old New Zealand Olympic and Commonwealth Games Committee (now National Olympic Committee) Tim Castle, said he had been given the capsule which contained what he had been told was a homeopathic remedy for a severe dose of influenza.

The unnamed three-person tribunal unanimously accepted that Vertongen was not a cheat and had administered the capsule for a specific therapeutic purpose.

Steel, while not pointing the finger specifically at Vertongen, said: "The principles which allowed this to happen are all wrong. This is not a witch-hunt, but the Cycling New Zealand rules which have the provision to lessen the penalty need to be looked at."

The decision is final and the agency cannot appeal against it.

But they have suspended testing within cycling in the interim.

"Cycling is one of the agency's priority sports," Steel said. "They are fully aware of what is involved. They know they have to step into line in terms of sanctions. Their attitude is not consistent with Hillary Commission policy.

"It makes you ask, what do you need to do to get a ban?"

Seen as a world leader in the fight against drugs in sport, the NZSDA fears their international reputation is at stake.

As a member of the International Anti-Doping Agency - the secretariat is based here - Steel said he could have done without this case.

"In a similar case in the United States a 16-year-old female fencer was given what they described as a 'lenient' year ban," Steel said. "Given what has happened here, you have to wonder what they are now thinking."

Vertongen, with his father Max as stand-in national coach, is due to ride at this year's world track championships.