Sports Minister Olivia “Babsy” Grange has offered apologies and promised consequences following the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO) foul-up that resulted in the non-ratification of the world under-20 women’s 4x100m record set by Jamaica at the recently concluded Carifta Games.

Grange, who was on hand when Serena Cole, Tina Clayton, Brianna Lyston and Tia Clayton clocked a breathtaking 42.58 seconds inside the National Stadium in mid-April, expressed her own disappointment that the time was not ratified by World Athletics, as only three of the four athletes were tested after the race.

“As minister, I offer a sincere apology to the young athletes affected by this unfortunate set of circumstances for which there must be consequences,” Grange said during her presentation at the sectoral debate inside Gordon House yesterday.

“It was the first world record that I’ve ever witnessed on home soil, and the fact that it will not be recorded as such is truly disappointing,” Grange added.

Though neither the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) rules, the JADCO rules nor the International Standards for Testing and Investigation say an athlete who breaks a record must be tested immediately afterwards, the World Athletics Competition Rules say an athlete must submit to doping control immediately after the end of the event, where the athlete has broken or equalled a world record.

The rules further require that in the case of a relay world record, all members of the team must be tested.

The time run in Kingston on April 17 had beaten the previous world record of 42.94 seconds set by another Jamaican team of Cole, Tina Clayton, Kerrica Hill and Tia Clayton at the World Under-20 Championships in Nairobi, Kenya, in August 2021.

According to Grange, a report received from JADCO Chairman Alexander Williams following an internal investigation acknowledged that JADCO’s technical staff “was not sufficiently knowledgeable of the World Athletics rules prior to the competition”.

She said the chairman’s report also acknowledged that the failure to test one member of the relay team was because of an apparent existing best practice at JADCO not to test an athlete twice within 24 hours in competition.

However, further in the report, Grange said the chairman explained that checks have revealed that this best practice is not contained in the JADCO rules, the International Standard for Testing, the WADA rules, and is not contained in any internal memorandum or document, meaning such a practice “appears to have been an instruction originating, at least, from the time of the previous executive director”.

The minister stated that the chairman’s investigation also found that JADCO applied its intended practice over and above what appears to be “explicit instructions from the JAAA” to provide six tests per day with testing being done on any athlete who achieves a national and/or world record.

“The unfortunate consequence is that the young athletes’ world record will not be ratified by World Athletics,” Grange lamented.With that, the minister revealed that a disciplinary sub-committee of the JADCO board is being established to take the appropriate action in the matter and compulsory retraining is to be done of all technical services staff on the rules of competition governing the major sporting organisations. A list of these organisations is to be agreed on by the board.

Another implementation announced by Grange is for JADCO to review “all procedures or protocols which would require an event organiser or body requesting in-competition testing to provide rules and specific instructions in a timely fashion prior to the event”.

“This situation must never recur. In recent years, Jamaica’s reputation in anti-doping in sport has been excellent. It must be maintained and built upon,” Grange noted.

Grange also announced the appointment of members to the anti-doping disciplinary panel for the next three years, ending May 2025.

The panel to be chaired by Kent Gammon, will have Georgia Gibson Henlin and O’Neil Brown as vice-chairs. Dr Japheth Ford, Dr Donovan Calder, Dr Marjorie Vassell, Denise Forrest, Heron Dale and Dean Martin are the other members of the panel.