Sam Laidlow Announces ITA Investigation

Triathlon Forum
462

Anyone know how many investigations ITA launches per year? Not just tests, but I assume an investigation is something else?

I assume when you are under investigation, you are tested even more regularly and randomly, possibly throughout the year.

I assume if you were cheating, knowing you’re under investigation will massively impact your ability and willingness to take a risk and cheat.

I assume that will drastically reduce the gains you get from the ability to train and recover like a machine.

I assume that would piss someone off knowing they can follow their protocol?

463

I agree. People like David saying he is obligated to release it don’t seem to be thinking clearly. Whatever you think about RVB Sr. and the situation, he has been consistent about keeping that private communication private.

There are so many wild leaps of fancy and sprints to conclusions on this thread, even by ST standards.

As best as I can tell, Sam is entirely responsible for bringing this into the public eye. Whether calculated or reactive, it seems like a poor decision if he wanted to keep it under wraps. Neither reflects especially well on him or his team.

I hope he is clean because I want our sport to be clean.
You’re right. I’d want to keep any incriminating evidence that impacted me or my son private too…

Sam would have been vilified had he tried to keep it quiet and it was leaked (as it would have) implying he had something to hide. Maybe the email is very incriminating, he’s clean and wanted to attack those brining his credibility into question.

People on here want to murder anyone that is remotely linked to PEDs and have such a strong stance on it. Imagine for an instance you grew up as a kid dreaming of winning the Ironman world title, train your whole life and one day live out that dream with the same stance on drugs the forum here has, only for your credibility to be dragged into a drug conspiracy with no evidence. You’ve just been crowned king so I’d be feeling robbed, pretty pissed off and would be highly be offended by anyone that questioned my years of hard work.

Innocent until proven guilty and apart from an amazing performance and some random conjecture based on gossip regarding missing events, no one has any evidence of proof so I’m one for Sam standing up for himself and can fully understand why he has lashed out the way he has highlighting anyone that threw a shadow of doubt regarding his performance. My gut feel is it shows more of his innocence and nothing to hide attitude. I guess time will tell so lets let the investigation take it’s place and place any guilt post the outcome and wait for RVB Snr’s position then.

I don’t understand why someone would go out of their way to publicly dox someone when the investigation hasn’t done anything to their career yet and has no possibility to do so in the future. Like nobody knows anything about this, why are you incriminating yourself by revealing to everyone that you’re suspected of doping when this is just gonna blow over in a month?

464

I agree. People like David saying he is obligated to release it don’t seem to be thinking clearly. Whatever you think about RVB Sr. and the situation, he has been consistent about keeping that private communication private.

There are so many wild leaps of fancy and sprints to conclusions on this thread, even by ST standards.

As best as I can tell, Sam is entirely responsible for bringing this into the public eye. Whether calculated or reactive, it seems like a poor decision if he wanted to keep it under wraps. Neither reflects especially well on him or his team.

I hope he is clean because I want our sport to be clean.
You’re right. I’d want to keep any incriminating evidence that impacted me or my son private too…

Sam would have been vilified had he tried to keep it quiet and it was leaked (as it would have) implying he had something to hide. Maybe the email is very incriminating, he’s clean and wanted to attack those brining his credibility into question.

People on here want to murder anyone that is remotely linked to PEDs and have such a strong stance on it. Imagine for an instance you grew up as a kid dreaming of winning the Ironman world title, train your whole life and one day live out that dream with the same stance on drugs the forum here has, only for your credibility to be dragged into a drug conspiracy with no evidence. You’ve just been crowned king so I’d be feeling robbed, pretty pissed off and would be highly be offended by anyone that questioned my years of hard work.

Innocent until proven guilty and apart from an amazing performance and some random conjecture based on gossip regarding missing events, no one has any evidence of proof so I’m one for Sam standing up for himself and can fully understand why he has lashed out the way he has highlighting anyone that threw a shadow of doubt regarding his performance. My gut feel is it shows more of his innocence and nothing to hide attitude. I guess time will tell so lets let the investigation take it’s place and place any guilt post the outcome and wait for RVB Snr’s position then.

I don’t understand why someone would go out of their way to publicly dox someone when the investigation hasn’t done anything to their career yet and has no possibility to do so in the future. Like nobody knows anything about this, why are you incriminating yourself by revealing to everyone that you’re suspected of doping when this is just gonna blow over in a month?

Hypotheticals:
He’s defensive and angry. See Sam Long and Hoala swim.

He’s stressed with family and girlfriend fights: see girlfriend mouthing off about something you don’t joke about and father and mother worried they are now under a massive cloud of suspicion.

He’s stressed at all the sudden attention on him from being world champ and feels the scrutiny as if he’s a fraud that’s sometimes common of winners and it’s a lot of pressure.

He’s upset this investigation messes with his protocol and knows (thinks?) that everyone else is playing a similar game and is blasting the family people doing it to signal to others to stay away from these people who will rat you out.

I find it also interesting people are going after RvBsr when Laidlow blasted some other people too for having the audacity to speak to the ITA when they started asking questions. He’s not only upset about the email but went on attack mode at everyone talking, and then claimed he did it to prevent others from spreading rumors in the future. Which basically is saying he disagrees that athletes should report suspicious info.

465

I agree. People like David saying he is obligated to release it don’t seem to be thinking clearly. Whatever you think about RVB Sr. and the situation, he has been consistent about keeping that private communication private.

There are so many wild leaps of fancy and sprints to conclusions on this thread, even by ST standards.

As best as I can tell, Sam is entirely responsible for bringing this into the public eye. Whether calculated or reactive, it seems like a poor decision if he wanted to keep it under wraps. Neither reflects especially well on him or his team.

I hope he is clean because I want our sport to be clean.
You’re right. I’d want to keep any incriminating evidence that impacted me or my son private too…

Sam would have been vilified had he tried to keep it quiet and it was leaked (as it would have) implying he had something to hide. Maybe the email is very incriminating, he’s clean and wanted to attack those brining his credibility into question.

People on here want to murder anyone that is remotely linked to PEDs and have such a strong stance on it. Imagine for an instance you grew up as a kid dreaming of winning the Ironman world title, train your whole life and one day live out that dream with the same stance on drugs the forum here has, only for your credibility to be dragged into a drug conspiracy with no evidence. You’ve just been crowned king so I’d be feeling robbed, pretty pissed off and would be highly be offended by anyone that questioned my years of hard work.

Innocent until proven guilty and apart from an amazing performance and some random conjecture based on gossip regarding missing events, no one has any evidence of proof so I’m one for Sam standing up for himself and can fully understand why he has lashed out the way he has highlighting anyone that threw a shadow of doubt regarding his performance. My gut feel is it shows more of his innocence and nothing to hide attitude. I guess time will tell so lets let the investigation take it’s place and place any guilt post the outcome and wait for RVB Snr’s position then.

I don’t understand why someone would go out of their way to publicly dox someone when the investigation hasn’t done anything to their career yet and has no possibility to do so in the future. Like nobody knows anything about this, why are you incriminating yourself by revealing to everyone that you’re suspected of doping when this is just gonna blow over in a month?
LOL gonna blow over in a month??? We don’t know the content of the email and who it was sent to???

466

Not replying to anyone in particular here, and this is not directly related to Laidlow but wanted to share that the ITA had representatives at the Paris Test Event, who spoke to all the coaches, and athletes in the briefing - the point was they are specifically looking for ‘tips’, ‘suspicions’, e.g. ‘allegations’, ‘if you see something, say something’ - and they encouraged all coaches and athletes to share these with the ITA. After the briefing a number of coaches spoke individually with the ITA reps. They want to know who trains with who, who the coaches, and groups are, training locations, and more. Any suspicious performances, etc. They emphasized that any ‘tips’ were confidential. A ‘tip’ might not trigger an investigation, but might prompt looking closer at the performance profile, passport, or asking more questions.

It’s very clear that in and out of competition testing will not catch all dopers, even with the passport, there is simply not enough resources for enough testing, and these types of investigations are an important part of the process of clean sport, which may trigger targeted testing, etc, see Chartier, and the work that the AIU has done (athletics integrity unit).

It would be an unfortunate outcome of this situation if people were dissuaded from sharing potentially useful information with the ITA that may contribute to a cleaner sport for all. If a ‘tip’ is just a ‘rumor’ or jealousy, of course nothing will come of it, but if there is something of substance it could add to a successful case, which is a ‘win’ for the sport.

Joel

bravo,one of the few useful posts in this thread.
we should be happy for every doping investigation. and better one too many than one too little.

467

I agree. People like David saying he is obligated to release it don’t seem to be thinking clearly. Whatever you think about RVB Sr. and the situation, he has been consistent about keeping that private communication private.

There are so many wild leaps of fancy and sprints to conclusions on this thread, even by ST standards.

As best as I can tell, Sam is entirely responsible for bringing this into the public eye. Whether calculated or reactive, it seems like a poor decision if he wanted to keep it under wraps. Neither reflects especially well on him or his team.

I hope he is clean because I want our sport to be clean.
You’re right. I’d want to keep any incriminating evidence that impacted me or my son private too…

Sam would have been vilified had he tried to keep it quiet and it was leaked (as it would have) implying he had something to hide. Maybe the email is very incriminating, he’s clean and wanted to attack those brining his credibility into question.

People on here want to murder anyone that is remotely linked to PEDs and have such a strong stance on it. Imagine for an instance you grew up as a kid dreaming of winning the Ironman world title, train your whole life and one day live out that dream with the same stance on drugs the forum here has, only for your credibility to be dragged into a drug conspiracy with no evidence. You’ve just been crowned king so I’d be feeling robbed, pretty pissed off and would be highly be offended by anyone that questioned my years of hard work.

Innocent until proven guilty and apart from an amazing performance and some random conjecture based on gossip regarding missing events, no one has any evidence of proof so I’m one for Sam standing up for himself and can fully understand why he has lashed out the way he has highlighting anyone that threw a shadow of doubt regarding his performance. My gut feel is it shows more of his innocence and nothing to hide attitude. I guess time will tell so lets let the investigation take it’s place and place any guilt post the outcome and wait for RVB Snr’s position then.

I don’t understand why someone would go out of their way to publicly dox someone when the investigation hasn’t done anything to their career yet and has no possibility to do so in the future. Like nobody knows anything about this, why are you incriminating yourself by revealing to everyone that you’re suspected of doping when this is just gonna blow over in a month?

Hypotheticals:
He’s defensive and angry. See Sam Long and Hoala swim.

He’s stressed with family and girlfriend fights: see girlfriend mouthing off about something you don’t joke about and father and mother worried they are now under a massive cloud of suspicion.

He’s stressed at all the sudden attention on him from being world champ and feels the scrutiny as if he’s a fraud that’s sometimes common of winners and it’s a lot of pressure.

He’s upset this investigation messes with his protocol and knows (thinks?) that everyone else is playing a similar game and is blasting the family people doing it to signal to others to stay away from these people who will rat you out.

I find it also interesting people are going after RvBsr when Laidlow blasted some other people too for having the audacity to speak to the ITA when they started asking questions. He’s not only upset about the email but went on attack mode at everyone talking, and then claimed he did it to prevent others from spreading rumors in the future. Which basically is saying he disagrees that athletes should report suspicious info.
Now that is an interesting take if ever I hear one… Maybe he saying he doesn’t want people to spread rumours (suspicious info) in future to ruin/taint the career of athletes who are clean???

468

Not replying to anyone in particular here, and this is not directly related to Laidlow but wanted to share that the ITA had representatives at the Paris Test Event, who spoke to all the coaches, and athletes in the briefing - the point was they are specifically looking for ‘tips’, ‘suspicions’, e.g. ‘allegations’, ‘if you see something, say something’ - and they encouraged all coaches and athletes to share these with the ITA. After the briefing a number of coaches spoke individually with the ITA reps. They want to know who trains with who, who the coaches, and groups are, training locations, and more. Any suspicious performances, etc. They emphasized that any ‘tips’ were confidential. A ‘tip’ might not trigger an investigation, but might prompt looking closer at the performance profile, passport, or asking more questions.

It’s very clear that in and out of competition testing will not catch all dopers, even with the passport, there is simply not enough resources for enough testing, and these types of investigations are an important part of the process of clean sport, which may trigger targeted testing, etc, see Chartier, and the work that the AIU has done (athletics integrity unit).

It would be an unfortunate outcome of this situation if people were dissuaded from sharing potentially useful information with the ITA that may contribute to a cleaner sport for all. If a ‘tip’ is just a ‘rumor’ or jealousy, of course nothing will come of it, but if there is something of substance it could add to a successful case, which is a ‘win’ for the sport.

Joel

In a sport that cannot afford endless testing, with multiple formats and championships to police, this has got to be the best way to provide a deterrent to doping. Dopers will always be looking over their shoulder. Clean athletes and coaches have an opportunity to pass on relevant information discreetly. Doping rings and individuals involved in doping can be identified and information pieced together to identify who these people are. The facilities that get used can be identified as well. We should support this and the people who pass on relevant information to be assessed.

469

Not replying to anyone in particular here, and this is not directly related to Laidlow but wanted to share that the ITA had representatives at the Paris Test Event, who spoke to all the coaches, and athletes in the briefing - the point was they are specifically looking for ‘tips’, ‘suspicions’, e.g. ‘allegations’, ‘if you see something, say something’ - and they encouraged all coaches and athletes to share these with the ITA. After the briefing a number of coaches spoke individually with the ITA reps. They want to know who trains with who, who the coaches, and groups are, training locations, and more. Any suspicious performances, etc. They emphasized that any ‘tips’ were confidential. A ‘tip’ might not trigger an investigation, but might prompt looking closer at the performance profile, passport, or asking more questions.

It’s very clear that in and out of competition testing will not catch all dopers, even with the passport, there is simply not enough resources for enough testing, and these types of investigations are an important part of the process of clean sport, which may trigger targeted testing, etc, see Chartier, and the work that the AIU has done (athletics integrity unit).

It would be an unfortunate outcome of this situation if people were dissuaded from sharing potentially useful information with the ITA that may contribute to a cleaner sport for all. If a ‘tip’ is just a ‘rumor’ or jealousy, of course nothing will come of it, but if there is something of substance it could add to a successful case, which is a ‘win’ for the sport.

Joel

In a sport that cannot afford endless testing, with multiple formats and championships to police, this has got to be the best way to provide a deterrent to doping. Dopers will always be looking over their shoulder. Clean athletes and coaches have an opportunity to pass on relevant information discreetly. Doping rings and individuals involved in doping can be identified and information pieced together to identify who these people are. The facilities that get used can be identified as well. We should support this and the people who pass on relevant information to be assessed.

Too sensible.

470

Wow, guilty until proven innocent! You certainly make a good candidate for pitchfork mob leader!

471

Guilty of being a dick. As a top pro athlete you have to be prepared for extra testing and scrutinizing from the authorised groups and the system has always asked for ppl to come forward with any concerns. The dick move is making a big deal about getting your feelings hurt and publicly trying to shame the ppl you believe have done exactly what the AIC have asked for. Trying to put other ppl off taking the risk to notify of any info they think they may have. Surely he can see this is all good for clean sport, he is just unfortunate it was directed at him at this time, but plenty others I am sure would have been in similar situations in the past and just shut up and let it play out.

472

I agree. People like David saying he is obligated to release it don’t seem to be thinking clearly. Whatever you think about RVB Sr. and the situation, he has been consistent about keeping that private communication private.

There are so many wild leaps of fancy and sprints to conclusions on this thread, even by ST standards.

As best as I can tell, Sam is entirely responsible for bringing this into the public eye. Whether calculated or reactive, it seems like a poor decision if he wanted to keep it under wraps. Neither reflects especially well on him or his team.

I hope he is clean because I want our sport to be clean.

The problem is our sport is not clean (ie. Collin Chartier) A study of Age Groupers at IM Frankfurt revealed 20% of age groupers admitted doping. How many didn’t admit to doping? Guess what it’s more, a lot more. I’d guess it’s more pronounced men’s 30 to 50 and more so in the Top 20 in such groups. It’s likely a lot more common than we’d like to believe.

Rather than believe in unicorns, I’d rather see a push for more testing to include age groupers. Podiums should be tested. I’d pay more per race to know people were tested.

473

Sam would have been vilified had he tried to keep it quiet and it was leaked (as it would have) implying he had something to hide

——

I would guess more often than not an “investigation” that results in nothing to see here and/or no evidence of doping never sees the light of day, or we would have never cared if it was leaked. I mean how many “investigations” do we hear of that is leaked to the public? I can’t think of very many. We have no clue how often athletes are actually investigated from tips etc. it may be rare and it may be regular that’s how “quiet” the process is most of time. There’s no point to leak anything because you the athlete don’t have the investigation result to “prove” the haters it was wrong to gossip about said athlete etc. we are all still “waiting” to see if this actually amounts to anything and if it doesn’t we know it was clean- but it’s not because SL says he is clean,but because the investigation confirms he’s clean.

Hell we didn’t even know CC popped until he revealed it, we don’t ever hear of anyone’s negative drug tests after these world class events. We all just move on until the authorities have a positive to report.

474

Indeed good fortune that there was no social media

Arguably the old usenet groups were the dawn of internet social media. Predated HTTP by nearly a decade.

i know this is a forum full of middle-aged engineers, but seriously, i think we’re taking it too far.

like honestly, if you tried to cut the course at Mrs T’s, would rick denney and mike plumb really give you hell on rec.sport.triathlon? leading a mob of dozens?

I saw some crazy mobs on Usenet back in the day!

475

Indeed good fortune that there was no social media

Arguably the old usenet groups were the dawn of internet social media. Predated HTTP by nearly a decade.

i know this is a forum full of middle-aged engineers, but seriously, i think we’re taking it too far.

like honestly, if you tried to cut the course at Mrs T’s, would rick denney and mike plumb really give you hell on rec.sport.triathlon? leading a mob of dozens?

I saw some crazy mobs on Usenet back in the day!

The point is the mob of a few computer savvy geeks. Now the mob is everyone in triathlon around the world with a computer or phone which is the entire sport plus the spillover in the sports media. Plus the sport was tiny then. Its not even comparable to say usenet was a form of social media. It was barely more than the same group of people that got together in the local pub for beers, except is spanned some element of geography (all relative to the size of social media now).

476

Sam would have been vilified had he tried to keep it quiet and it was leaked (as it would have) implying he had something to hide

——

I would guess more often than not an “investigation” that results in nothing to see here and/or no evidence of doping never sees the light of day, or we would have never cared if it was leaked. I mean how many “investigations” do we hear of that is leaked to the public? I can’t think of very many. We have no clue how often athletes are actually investigated from tips etc. it may be rare and it may be regular that’s how “quiet” the process is most of time. There’s no point to leak anything because you the athlete don’t have the investigation result to “prove” the haters it was wrong to gossip about said athlete etc. we are all still “waiting” to see if this actually amounts to anything and if it doesn’t we know it was clean- but it’s not because SL says he is clean,but because the investigation confirms he’s clean.

Hell we didn’t even know CC popped until he revealed it, we don’t ever hear of anyone’s negative drug tests after these world class events. We all just move on until the authorities have a positive to report.

I’m inclined to think a potential doper would be pissed because of the heightened testing scrutiny they now face. Would you start your injection protocol if you were looking over your shoulder every day?

I don’t know why an innocent person would “out” themselves as being under investigation in such an angry way. I can see him saying professionally that he welcomes the testing but he’s been privy to some behind the scenes gossip chain emails and disappointed
at the allegations and happy to demonstrate he’s clean.

So there are two possibilities (duh) he’s guilty and lashing out. Or he’s innocent but deeply unhappy with himself and internalized this negative attention even more and lashed out. There’s always a price to be paid for our choices whether we realize it and recognize that price or not, we pay the cost in someway regardless.

People who are innocent and content and happy with themselves don’t respond this way.

I hope regardless of the outcome that Sam can learn to love life and be happy with himself.

477

Yourself and the Baysi guy in this thread are getting a bit carried away and in my view, and borderline slandering Sam Laidlow, name calling RvB sr, etc… I think we can agree that his IG post was a bit of a mess, but it is not evidence that the guy did something wrong. Some of the stuff you have stated is borderline ridiculous: “innocent folks don’t do this…etc.” Have you ever been wrongly accused of something when you were 24 ?

We don’t know if he is guilty or innocent, all we know is that there is an investigation going on and hopefully it is effective at catching any wrongdoing and clearing him if this is an unjustified witchhunt.

478

I think investigations are reasonable, it would also appear that the ITA although a new organization has a mandate and I have no reason to doubt that they are doing reasonable and fair work. I don’t think (at least hope) any athlete (including Sam) is not arguing their authority, or mandate or otherwise ability to do the work they set out to do.

The issue here is that RVB sr leaked it. He leaked confidential information about an athlete and investigation.

Where athletes have a right to confidentiality and due process, this in my view compromises that, it opens a window which we don’t want or need to be open.

Catching dopers is hard enough, when caught the AD case against them needs to be absolutely bullet proof…from investigation to testing, to chain of custody, to results management and sanction. It needs to, from the start, withstand CAS scrutiny.

Maurice

479

It seems to me that Sam Laidlow has really mismanaged this situation. He’s either guilty, in which case his career is over. Or he’s squeaky clean, in which case he has shown a clear tendency to break down under pressure and overreact. Either way, it’s gonna take him a long time to recover from this, I would not be surprised if his performance levels suffer no matter how this ends. It’s lonely at the top - maybe there is something else you learn slowly coming through the Olympic ITU pathway, which many have glossed over.

480

Where athletes have a right to confidentiality and due process, this in my view compromises that, it opens a window which we don’t want or need to be open.

I agree there, however imo one leaking it makes it a “rumor” the other leaking it confirms it. Now does SL confirm it if it’s not “leaked”, my guess is no. So when SL confirms it and goes on the attack, the key issue is that unless he has the confirmation that there is nothing to see here (and yes investigations are completed and said athlete is almost assuredly notified of said investigation), he can’t really “win” yet by going on the attack. It then imo only adds “pressure” on himselft that imo was not going to be there but for his own reaction to the “leaked” info.

That’s why I thought it made real no sense to confirm/validate the rumor most especially during what we all think is an active investigation. He would have already leaked the final summary if the investigation was already completed, almost assuredly; thus “proving” he’s clean.

ETA: I’m not saying things should be leaked or outed, I just thought by confirming it at this time when he doesn’t have the “evidence” to prove he’s actually clean (from the investigation that he confirms), he can’t win in the public’s eye.

481

Unless you know more than what has been posted on this thread, there is nothing to say that RVB Sr. “leaked” confidential information. People are making wild leaps on this thread.

Based on everything I’ve seen, Sam is the one who put this in the public sphere.

I know some like Shambolic have said it would have been leaked anyway, but that is just hypothesis contrary to fact.