ROTTERDAM, The Netherlands, Feb. 6. EMILE Vrijman, the attorney for Costa Rican swimmer Claudia Poll called the decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) banning Poll from competition for four years a "travesty of justice," and filed an appeal against the laboratory today.<\/p>\n
Having studied the arguments relied upon by the CAS Panel in the matter at hand carefully, Vrijman said he felt that he "simply could not find otherwise."<\/p>\n
Contrary to what was stated in the press release issued by CAS on February 4, 2002, he said, the appeal lodged with CAS on behalf of Claudia Poll did not merely put forward the argument that \u201cthe laboratory had failed to follow some requirements with respect to the analysis procedure.\u201d <\/p>\n
The appeal concerned itself with a much more fundamental matter, he said, specifically "the question whether or not the laboratory in question had reported its findings in accordance with the relevant requirements stipulated by the International Olympic Committee (IOC)." <\/p>\n
According to Vrijman \u2013 as well as the scientific experts testifying on behalf of Claudia Poll – "the laboratory in question in fact failed to do and consequently reported a wrong and therefore invalid test result. <\/p>\n
"Had the laboratory applied the relevant requirements properly and fully – Claudia Poll would simply have been found negative", said Vrijman. <\/p>\n
"Given the fact however, that the manner in which the doping analyses have been conducted in this case, does represent what is considered common practise by most of the IOC accredited doping control laboratories, acceptance of this argument by CAS would have had serious consequences for the manner in which doping controls have been and currently are being conducted by the IOC accredited doping control laboratories, especially with regard to those banned substances requiring an IOC accredited doping control laboratory to determine the amount of the banned substance present within an athlete\u2019s urine sample."<\/p>\n
Vrijman said he "fails to understand how the CAS Panel reasonably could have found that the laboratory in question did not commit a gross violation of the applicable regulations. Notwithstanding the admission by the head of the laboratory – in writing before, as well as personally at the hearing itself – that the laboratory had indeed knowingly and willingly presented a wrong impression of the accuracy of it\u2019s testing, as well as availability of draft guidelines from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) agreeing with the position taken on behalf of Claudia Poll, the CAS Panel nevertheless was able to find so." <\/p>\n
The decision by CAS however, does not represent the end in this case, Vrijman said, but instead "only the beginning of a new phase, involving other institutions then those involved so far." <\/p>\n
Today, February 7, 2003, an official complaint against the laboratory involved will be lodged on behalf of Claudia Poll with the relevant accreditation body for that laboratory, requesting a full investigation of the arguments raised before CAS, Vrijman said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ROTTERDAM, The Netherlands, Feb. 6. EMILE Vrijman, the attorney for Costa Rican swimmer Claudia Poll called the decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) banning Poll from competition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zzzzzzzzz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n