Re-writing Records in Athletics: Pride & Prejudice

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European Athletics are proposing that all world records set before 2005 should now be rewritten and it wants IAAF to endorse such proposals. If the proposals are accepted by the IAAF, a world record would only be recognised if it meets all three of the following criteria:
 
1) It was achieved at a competition on a list of approved international events where the highest standards of officiating and technical equipment can be guaranteed;
 
2) The athlete had been subject to an agreed number of doping control tests in the months leading up to it;

3) The doping control sample taken after the record was stored and available for re-testing for 10 years.



The proposals to rewrite records in athletics serve no substantive purpose and it is extremely doubtful they will have a deterrent effect on those currently competing. They are arbitrary and capricious, they offend against fairness and justice and, to a certain extent, they violate a number of well established rights afforded to athletes.

If the legitimate aim pursued (behind such proposals) is the so called ‘clean sport’, it is submitted that such proposals do not meet with this specific aim and one would be hard pressed to accept that records set in the past, had been achieved, indiscriminately, with the use of performance enhancing substances. The arbitrary nature of such proposals means that such records set in the past can no longer stand because they are not clean. This is a serious implication not only for the individuals concerned, but also for the sport as a whole. 
 
Notwithstanding the serious damage to an individual’s reputation, it is submitted that certain procedural rights afforded to individual athletes could be violated. The burden of proof in anti-doping litigation rests with the prosecuting authority (governing body or testing authority) and it must be proven, to the comfortable satisfaction of the tribunal, that the athlete in question violated an anti-doping regulation. Save where no such rules can be brought forward retrospectively, the contractual nature of the relationship between an athlete and his/her governing body, would not allow the legal operation of such proposals. They would also fall foul of the principle of proportionality and they will offend against a number of certain human rights also afforded to athletes. Such proposals would also create an enormous administrative burden and they would stretch the resources of the relevant governing bodies.
Such proposals, therefore, should be vehemently discouraged and in the interests of fairness and justice, they must be dropped immediately. Catharsis can only be successful if it starts from within. The rulers here must rule upon themselves first, so they can restore the lost confidence and integrity.  
 
In the event where the relevant governing bodies go ahead with such proposals, it is submitted, it is now certain that the individual athletes concerned and affected by the said proposals, will commence action before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and their respective national courts.
 
Jurisdiction, in this instance, cannot be said to be remote in either fora.
 
Dr Gregory Ioannidis
4 May 2017

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