LAST week’s disclosure that a Jamaican sprinter was tested positive for a substance on the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) banned list was as bad as it gets for the country and the athlete implicated. Within a couple hours of that breaking news story, two radio entities revealed the name of the athlete to be the in-form Steve Mullings, the sprinter who has the third fastest 100-metre time for the year behind Usain Bolt and American Tyson Gay.

Much time and space has so far been allotted to this news item. Indeed, over the past four or so days, nearly everybody with an opinion on the subject with media access of one sort or the other had something to say on the issue. But what I found especially intriguing was the elephant in the room that everybody was ignoring before the former Camperdown High School Principal Cynthia Cooke raised the issue in a well-written letter to the editor of the Gleaner newspaper on Sunday. She, like myself, wanted to know who disclosed Steve Mullling’s name to the media?

When the news first broke, the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCo) executive director, Dr Patrece Charles-Freeman appeared adamant in her refusal to disclose the name of the athlete, because, as she claimed, her commission was legally bound from so doing.

The Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association also refused to comment on the grounds that it was not officially informed.

What I do know is that there is a procedure, as the JADCo director pointed out, which stipulates that the name of the athlete cannot be released until and unless that procedure is followed. But in the case of Steve Mullings, I’m not even sure that he was officially advised of his ban before the news media publicised his name in that sensational story, thus delivering another blow to the country’s jealously guarded reputation in the international sporting arena.

As Cooke pointed out in her letter, the media houses concerned could tell the name of the athlete, the type of drug, and when the test was done. Now where could this leak have occurred?

We now know that while the specific urine samples were taken by JADCo at the National Trials, that the testing itself was done by WADA and assuming the process of disclosure is adhered to, WADA then advises its representative, or in this case the sample taking body JADCo, which then makes the necessary contacts. But JADCo claims that it is legally bound not to disclose the name of the athlete until due process is adhered to.

Are we to understand that the athlete’s name was leaked by WADA itself? I think not. What I do believe is that JADCo should tell both the athlete and the public what it knows about how the information was leaked so as to try and protect its own image, at least at the national level. This is not to say that I am blaming the journalists at the two media houses for carrying the story. That they succeeded in their effort to get the information is to their credit. But there are good reasons for the procedures laid down by WADA and agreed to by member countries.

And what of the athlete himself? Could he by some unforeseen miracle be given a ‘let-off’ despite this being a second infringement? Mullings’ main sin may very well be stupidity or gross carelessness rather than cheating. Some of his friends and supporters argue that it has been known for some time that he suffers from chronic asthma which became evident at the New York meet just prior to our National Trials, when he defeated his training partner and US sprint star Tyson Gay. After that race, he was forced to seek medical treatment and television viewers may recall seeing images of him holding his chest while appearing to be suffering some discomfort.

Subsequently at the trials here in Kingston, he also claimed not to be in the best of health and was beaten into third place in the 100-metre. We have learnt that the substance for which he was tested is Furosemide, a prescription diuretic used to eliminate water and salt from the body and is used in the treatment of chronic asthma. But Furosemide can and is known to be used as a masking agent to hide or prevent the detection of other drugs. Therein lies the rub.

It would be a mistake for anyone to argue that the substance concerned is merely a diuretic and not an anabolic steroid or other performance enhancer and so should not attract too harsh a penalty. The fact is, that its use may be even worse as that is seen as the essence of cheating, masking the drug from detection, like lying to cover up a crime.

Further, it is my contention that any athlete, let alone one who already has a black mark against his name, who is placed on any form of medication at all should be extra careful to ensure that his or her use of prescription or non-prescription medication is reported and to seek the necessary approval from the respective agency.

At the very least, they should seek the guidance of their national association in how best to proceed. Hence I cannot accept this as an excuse for Mullings. Having said that, however, and assuming there is some merit in this explanation, this story suggests some leniency might apply in this case. This is especially relevant as he is now in danger of being banned for life as a second offender.

My other observation of how this issue is being treated suggests unwillingness by many, even in the media, to identify with Dr Herb Elliott’s peeve, that all the Jamaican athletes convincingly implicated to date are based abroad. In fact, to the best of my recollection, all the Jamaicans who have been tested positive to date are based in the US. The only locally based athletes to return a positive test have been recipients of questionable verdicts resulting in a punishment which they might quite understandably regard as unfortunate if not unjust. Here again JADCo seems to have escaped some accountability in the court of public opinion.

Take the case of the four athletes suspended for three months for the use of a substance called methylxanthine that wasn’t even on the WADA list. Quite justly in my view and that of many others, a disciplinary panel cleared these athletes on the grounds that the substance was not on the banned list. Amazingly, the Jamaican body — JADCo — then appealed against the verdict!! The reasoning advanced by JADCo was that the substance had a similar structure to tuaminoheptane, a banned stimulant.

To this day, I’m not sure what the commission was trying to prove other than perhaps engaging in an international image building exercise that was against the national interest and that of the unfortunate athletes. I cannot imagine such an action taken by a national body in any other country outside of the English-speaking Caribbean. I am also a bit surprised that JADCo didn’t produce additional positive tests at those trials, given the circumstances under which the athletes seemed to have ingested the substance.

Hopefully, our media scribes will be vigorous in their search for explanation of developments in our number one sport. These explanations will have a formidable bearing on Jamaica’s image at home and abroad and we need to hold accountable anyone found wanting.