Someone elses post on the Issue who I think has a bit more Insight than we do.
My background is cycling, and probably as much anti doping in cycling or the fight against it, I guess im best summed up as either a snark, troll, or commentator depending on your view, and MMA is another of my great loves. And its sad to see
much of what we saw in cycling over the last 15-20 years being replicated in other sports, but notably in MMA.
Not so much the doping, that is a problem in all sports, but the fact that the narrative is made by doctors, experts, athletes, managers who prey on the niavety of the fans who take them at their word that everything is just dandy.
VADA in my mind is nothing more than a PR exercise, its not a credible anti doping organisation, and it makes far too many claims that it simply cannot back up. Where to start...
For an anti doping agency or organisation to be succesful it needs a number of things
1) Total independance from the athletes
2) Total transparency about its methods and results
3) Run by people who are totally above question
The name, VADA - a deliberate attempt in my mind to lend itself credibilty, and to prey on the niavety of fans by bringing confusion over the similarity of its name to WADA. Ive seen various claims from VADA raising from they are
"Partners of WADA" which is utter nonsense (but ive seen this nonsense spread across social media and forums in much the same way as cycling employed interns to spread disinformation around), they are not partners of WADA in any sense.
ANy claims are utter BS, they just have a similar sounding name.
Yes, so they follow the WADA banned list, but thats a publicly available list that anyone can choose to download and follow, that does not make them "Partners".. they use WADA approved labs, but so do US anti doping, so do the Canadian centre for ethics in sport, and so can I, should i wish to take a sample of my blood, along with the requisite pile of cash to any WADA accredited lab.
Ive even seen claims on these forums that VADA are "WADA Accredited", this is complete and utter BS. Wada dont hand out accreditations to agencies. VADA use WADA accredited labs, that is all.
The people involved, lets start with Ramsus Daamsgard. In some circles he is lauded for creating the best in house testing programs. He was behind the (cycling) team testing programs at CSC (later Saxo Tinkoff) and Astana (Later Radioshack), and will happily tell all and sundry that he created the best anti doping program in sport. But what isnt so widely reported is he started these testing programs under contract to Bispebjerg Hospital. The Hospital later severed their links with him, because of "concerns about how he was running the program", notably accepting gifts such a $10k bike from team CSC, originally the agreement was
the teams would pay the hospital, the hospital would pay Daamsgaard a salary, with nothing going direct from the team to Ramsus, and they severed links when he broke this agreement. This was made worse when at Astana he allowed Lance Armstrong to not be part of his internal program but instead undergo seperate testing under Dr Don Catlin. Daamsgard then formed his own private company "Radar" a commercial enterprise owned 100% by him. How can testing be credible, independant and reliable when the very people you are testing are those who are paying you to tell everyone you tested them and everything is ok?
Some background on Daamsgard
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/damsgaard-faces-criticism-over-anti-doping-programme
Don Catlin - who has been the brains behind many anti doping developments, leading the way in testing in sport, but has also many times been far too close to the athletes. It was Catlin who in the late nineties tested samples from the prior ten years and discover many of Lance Armstrongs samples showed high levels of testosterone and almost certainly indicated doping, yet ten years later
he was employed as Armstrongs personal anti doping expert leading Greg Lemond to comment "was signing on only as an enabler who would help Armstrong present a facade of being clean."
Catlin has been the pioneer behind many tests for doping products, but he is also the perfect person to advise people just how to get past those tests, something that has been alleged of him many many times.
Victor Conte: This guy really needs no introduction. Depending on who you listen to he was either the brains behind the founding of VADA or he has absolutely nothing to do with it. The simple fact is, the guy is toxic. Fox guarding the henhouse.
Independance: This is a massive issue. For any anti doping procedure to be taken seriously it HAS to be fully independant and operate above
any suspicion. And this is where VADA fails. It is being paid for by the very people who it is conducting the tests on. Its simple economics that those with something to hide will be prepared to pay more than those with nothing to hide, and if i am conducting testing on an athlete, in return for cash, it is in my interests for me to declare that athlete clean, and continue to reap income from said athlete. The only way for any organisation to avoid this is to either operate entirely independantly, or to be run by people who are 100% beyond all suspicioun, something we cannot say of Conte, Daamsgard and co.
Transparency and Process: The final issue with VADA is WHAT THE HELL DO THEY ACTUALLY DO? They make all these claims about their testing process, they follow the wada code, they handle samples in a certain way, they process them at certain labs, but what do they actually do.
If you check their website you will see that recently multiple athletes have "succesfully completed VADA".. what the hell does that mean, if you look at the bios
for the athletes it just says "congratulations on passing VADA"
VADA congratulates Ben Askren for successfully completing VADA
Congratulations to Edwin Rodriguez for completing one year of VADA testing.
VADA congratulates Sheila Graff for undergoing VADA
Great, they have "undergone VADA", they have "Completed VADA", but what does this mean? How many times were they tested? What were they tested for? Its a total mystery
To my mind, VADA is nothing more than a PR agency, that prays on peoples lack of understanding and niavety about anti doping, paid for by the very athletes it is testing.
+ deliberately misleading name
+ false claims of being in partnership with WADA
+ Total lack of transparency information about what "completing VADA" actually means
+ total lack of independance
+ Staff and experts that dont have an altogether reliable record
Yes, doping in MMA is an issue, a massive issue, but its an issue that can be addressed by the various organisations working with independant bodies, state athletic commissions (athough there are some doubts over their neutrality),
USADA in the US, Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport in Canada, UKAD in the UK, AFLD in France etc, not by some fly by night organisation like VADA. It worries me that people buy into the BS coming from VADA.
One other thing that bothers me intensely is some fans attitude to doping in MMA, they seemingly dont care, or dont see a problem with it.
In athletics, if an athlete dopes, he simply runs faster, against other opponents, he may take medals, or prize money from them, but that is all he takes.
In MMA your job as an athlete is to punch people, elbow people, kick people, inflict injury on your opponent. A doping athlete has the power, or stamina to inflict larger injuries, cause more damage, to seriously injure a "clean" opponent. That should not be acceptable to anyone.