KEY POINTS:
It remains to be seen if the WADA-inspired probe into Simon Daubney's positive drugs test throws any light on one of the more perplexing questions to emerge from the whole incident surrounding the Alinghi sailor. Why did it take so long to emerge?
Drug testing in yachting is
reasonably new, even though performance-enhancing drugs in the America's Cup might seem a bit of an oxymoron. Steroids for grinders are an obvious possibility and maybe beta blockers for those in positions where a cool head is needed for split-second decisions.
But even that is difficult to translate into making a hulking great America's Cup yacht go faster.
What showed up in Daubney's positive test was traces of metabolites of cocaine; a so-called recreational drug.
Daubney, one of the Team New Zealand sailors who defected to Alinghi back in the bad old days of the Blackheart and Loyal campaigns, resigned from Alinghi after a hearing in front of the America's Cup Jury. But the jury accepted Daubney's contention he had not knowingly taken a banned substance. His suspension was lifted by the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) in January.
Daubney and Alinghi presented a compelling case - character witnesses, including Russell Coutts (now with the rival Oracle syndicate), who testified that Daubney would not have taken cocaine knowingly, nor could they believe he would ever take a substance on the banned list.
This was all backed up by a lie detector test where Daubney was asked whether he had taken cocaine; the results of which indicated he was telling the truth.
But it has never been satisfactorily explained why the result of the testing, which was done on June 23, the first day of the Cup match, was not completed until July 9 (when the racing had finished), or made public until September 29 - and then only when an Italian newspaper broke the story.
Readers of this column and of the Herald on Sunday's coverage of the 33rd America's Cup in Valencia will be familiar with the themes of over-arching control of the event by Alinghi and its 100 per cent owned administrative arm, America's Cup Management (ACM). There are too many examples to go into here but there was a striking dimension in Valencia - Alinghi's single-minded 'control freak' style of running the Cup.
That includes the protocol announced at the end of the regatta for the next Cup - which was so unpopular and divisive it gave BMW Oracle the chance to foist its successful court action on Alinghi.
Oracle have taken their action with some high-sounding phrases reverberating around the courtroom and peppering the press releases; making it sound as though they have only the good of the Cup at heart. But there is some naked self-interest rubbing itself against the leg of all this altruism. Billionaire owner Larry Ellison and his crew are now favoured to win the Cup in what seems sure to be a head-to-head challenge involving giant trimarans.
Ironically, all the court action has tended to be a turn-off for many fans and that helped bury the Daubney incident under the detritus of the whole courtroom drama.
But the point remains. The drugs test would have had to be reported somewhere. That somewhere was, effectively, ACM. Which is, effectively, Alinghi. So how come news of the Daubney drugs test didn't break immediately?
In other large events where drugs are detected - like the Tour de France, for example - the authorities report the tests and the findings quickly; they tend to get it out there and into the public gaze as much as to show they are doing their job and being vigilant about drugs as anything else.
There is no suggestion of a cover-up. WADA follows all such drugs tests to their conclusion. But there could be questions raised about whether someone wanted the whole thing to quietly slip its moorings and sink; bringing again into the focus the contention that the Cup should be administered by an objective third party not quite so closely linked to the defender.
There is also no serious contention that a race should have been be re-sailed or that the result of the Cup should be in question. The most that could have happened was Daubney - a key member of the crew - being stood down.
But that's not really the point. The fact the matter never saw the light of day until after the racing ended looks bad. Was it an administrative oversight or was there some other reason? We will probably never know.
The World Anti-Doping Authority action to re-open the Daubney case confines itself to a precise brief - which does not include who did or didn't do what with whatever information.
But those running the America's Cup need to tidy up their drugs act.
Conspiracy theorists could point to the fact that Daubney's suspension was lifted by the ISAF after a ruling by the Swiss Olympic Association (that's Swiss, as in Switzerland, Alinghi's home base) that Daubney hadn't breached any anti-doping rules.
But a gap of three months between drugs test and public knowledge of the results, which came only from a leak or some investigative reporting is simply not acceptable.
