As a young sportsman l participated in the Innsbruck Winter Olympic Games in 1964 as a hockey player for Romania. Í was as well a tennis player for more than 20 years, tennis coach and promoter. As a tennis player I won one title of a Grand Slam, the doubles at the French Open, other 3 finals in the Davis Cup.
As a coach I had students like Vilas, Becker, Safin, Ivanisevici, Leconte etc. for another 25 years. I spent all my life in sport. I was the President of the Romanian Olympic Committee from 1998 to 2005, with two Olympic Games one in Sydney and another one in Athens.
As a president of the Romanian Olympic Committee Í was the first president who declared a law by which an athlete found positive would never ever represent his country in our case Romania in the Olympic Games. That was against the rules of Europe and US, who allowed maximum 2 years suspension. I did not believe in a second chance. An athelete that is a crook should neveragain in a very transparent sport.
For this reasons and others, Juan Antonio Samaranch, the President of the International Olympic Committee in those days, delegated me for one year to form a group leaded by Richard Pound, Vicepresident of the IOC , to settle an organization by which the athletes to be checked, judged etc. just to avoid cheating and “dirty” sports.
It took us about 10 days, we had opinions from medical organizations in US, Europe and Asia about the system of dopings and about the system of covering the substances that they use in doping, and many others.
This is how WADA was created to be a shepherd to keep the athlethes not tresspass the straight lines. T remember that one of the biggest problems was the following: an athlete found positive is positive. (Today laboratories are much, much better than 25 years ago, congratulations for that) Right away after an athelete was declared positive the WADA had to check WHY HE WAS POSITIVE for a substance that was on the black list. Today we still have on the left a black list and on the right any other food, or medicine or any supplement that is not prohibited.
The day that WADA had accepted the first so called exception “TUE (Therapeutic use exemption)” for an athlete to take substances from the left side or so called “black list” being legalized that was the moment when the cheating was absolutely legalized. The system became broken.
There are thousand of athletes of any kind, and probably hundred of my sport tennis, that have up to 14- 15 exceptions and still they are not declared positive.
This is cheating the sport, cheating yourself, other competitors and cheating the public. That is paying big, big money these days to see a clean sport played with a big ball, with a tennis ball, football, rugby, or any other sports, or athletic or swimming etc.
Where is the sport going today with this thing? Nobody knows!
Because being an unbelievable high number of athletes that are so called “sick” or unable to play under normal conditions there could be only three situation which might be the solution:
1. Make the World Championships, Olympic Games all the big competitions for the players, for the athletes with TUE (Therapeutic use exemption) then each of them can take as many TUE (Therapeutic use exemption) products that incites your performance and keep the clean ones with another title of Olympic competition, or World competition, a solution that is not practicable at all.
2. Take all the TUE (Therapeutic use exemption) products from the black list and put it on the right list then you have a so called super human league.
3. Forget all the doping, any kind of list drugs addict or cheating in sport, and anybody do what they want to run faster, to jump higher, to hit a ball with much more power, etc. But I want transparency!
To give you an easy example to understand. competition under normal and clean circumstances is so close today that the greatest player that ever stepped foot on a tennis court, Federer, Nadal and Djokovic only won in their whole career 54% of points played. This also means they lost 46% of these points.
outside the big 3 the margin average is 50.8%…..
So i ask you now If we permit these TUE*s (Therapeutic use exemption) that can give a 10-20-30 percent advantage to that player compared to the competitor…what chances does the opponent have? what reality does the spectator see? how does the “clean” one goes tomorrow after he lost to train to get better?
The game is rigged my friends and RIGGED in a big way.
Furthermore the incidence percentage of TUE”s (Therapeutic use exemption) or exemptions for “sick” atheltes is so big now that many players should not legally and morally play.
Now i am not saying that someone that takes a steroid or recovery medication, cell oxygen increase, or attention deficit (adderall, ritalin, concerta etc…) does not have a true illness but then chose a different less physicall profession.
Please WADA answer me this (just to have a small example of facts). How many Tennis players percentage wise today have exemptioms for attention deficit disorder as compared to the 2.5% world average? Nobody but absolutely nobody will answer. Because answering would destroy any other
TUE taken one by one.
As an Olympic athlete, as team sport hockey, individual sport tennis, being selected for the Davis Cup matches 159 times, one of the top five still alive as a tennis player, being coach to all these Grand Slams winners, and a very, very active spectator where to see a football match, or a Grand Slam tennis finals, or one of the Olympic finals of any sports you have to pay today the salary of a normal worker anywhere on this globe.
So, as spectator 1 would like all these TUE”s (Therapeutic use exemption) to be made public right away and a solution to be found by the organizations in charge like: 1OC, International and National Federations, organizations like ATP and WTA and similar ones in other sports.
The example of Sinner in tennis who was declared positive (correct). But with 000000000,1901 quantity of the substance whatever it was, fact that was confirmed by any scientist or doctor that he could not inject that substance or swallow it, or drink it and was not his or his people fault that the product was so tiny. Being declared by ITTA not guilty, it was very, very strange that WADA has decided to jump in and sue the decision. WHY ?
I can mention Halep as well, and many, many others.
Let’s see how we can have a clean sport. I am decided to go legally and financially no matter the number of years and cost with all my ressources ahead and bring BACK TRANSPARENCY in sports for everyone!
*Ion Tiriac is a Romanian businessman and former professional tennis and ice hockey player.
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