Freeman Medical Practitioner Tribunal .Manchester

Pross

lochindaal said:

If we assume it is for doping the amount ordered would do one rider for one month. As it is the only time they ordered Testogel from this supplier it doesn't seem likely there was a massive team doping program going on. You would have needed another "secret" supplier so there would have been no need to order from this one and risk getting caught.

I do think Sky crossed a "cheating" line with Wiggins though it wasn't illegal doping. Again as it was all done with TUE's it was within the rules. If you were secretly doping it would be better hidden than this. They definitely went beyond a line they held themselves to with the public image.

I suspect Freeman has done something wrong here as a personal doctor. If he can keep enough doubt going about doping and bullying, etc he will hope he may get away with it.

It can't be "cheating" if it's within the rules though. Beyond breaking the rules whether it gets termed gaming the system or not ethical is just subjective. It cuts both ways as well as you see sportspeople lose out due to very minor, unintentional infringements of a particular sports rules (doping or otherwise).

larkim

I do love those comments "I think it was cheating, even though it wasn't"

There is a legitimate view which is "I don't think that should be allowed, I'd like to see the sport have different rules" which is worth debating and engaging with, and lots of hot air is blown around most sports with that sort of comment, some of it useful and interesting.

But if it's not breaking the rules, it's not cheating.

slowbike

larkim said:

But if it's not breaking the rules, it's not cheating.

Breaking the rules - or breaking the spirit of the rules ?

Not sport - but on a different sport forum - we had a poster who delighted in posting pictures of not even scantily clad females. He claimed they were artistic. The forum owners took a dim view of it - and introduced some rules - like putting NSFW in the subject line and had rules for which bits could be seen - the guy revelled in it - he loved saying "I've had conversations with the moderators" and "it's within the rules" where it was clear he was just pushing the boundaries - posting stuff that the moderators hadn't considered. There was nothing illegal about what he was posting - the closest to illegal would've been copyright issues - but I think many of them were his own photos - it's just he was posting against the spirit of the rules ... because he could still claim he wasn't breaking them.


So where do you draw the line - or shall we just paint it with a roller ?

rick_chasey

Ah mate, rulez are rulez.

larkim

If the detail of the rules doesn't match some nebulous "spirit of the rules" then the detailed rules need changing. Unless you incorporate some specific line to allow an appropriate panel to judge "spirit of the rules" transgressions, then the spirit forms no part of the actual rules anyone has to play by. It sounds harsh, but that's the way it is.

slowbike

larkim said:

If the detail of the rules doesn't match some nebulous "spirit of the rules" then the detailed rules need changing. Unless you incorporate some specific line to allow an appropriate panel to judge "spirit of the rules" transgressions, then the spirit forms no part of the actual rules anyone has to play by. It sounds harsh, but that's the way it is.

Say a drug is only available via a needle - rule is No needles - covers everything - or so you think - until the drug can be taken via a spray .... hey - couldn't take it before, but we can now ... wayhay
cheating and playing fair are grey lines - an individual actions could be seen as fair by one, cheating by the other - but yes - unless someone has specifically ruled it out, it's within the rules.

RichN95.

Sport is just a competition according to an arbitrary set of rules. Some actions that are against the rules in one sport are fundamental to play in another. There is no morality involved. Any morality that an individual constructs for themselves within those set of rules is theirs and theirs alone.
We all do things in our lives that others may think immoral. But they are legal and we may think that the morality of those others is dumb.

In the wake of the Armstrong affair people were hungry for a new big scandal that they could cover properly this time. But how do you have a doping scandal with no doping? Well you draw up you own set of rules and hold people to them - and so grey areas and spirit of the rules is born. It's all BS.

orraloon

And meanwhile, this tribunal is about the fitness to practice of a registered doctor.

slowbike

RichN95. said:

Well you draw up you own set of rules and hold people to them - and so grey areas and spirit of the rules is born. It's all BS.

BS - spirit of the rules has always been there - fair play and gentlemanly conduct is one of the fundamentals of the dinghy racing I do. Ok - we're not talking about high level - but the principles still apply.

slowbike

orraloon said:

And meanwhile, this tribunal is about the fitness to practice of a registered doctor.

ye r- but that's just boring

RichN95.

slowbike said:

RichN95. said:

Well you draw up you own set of rules and hold people to them - and so grey areas and spirit of the rules is born. It's all BS.

BS - spirit of the rules has always been there - fair play and gentlemanly conduct is one of the fundamentals of the dinghy racing I do. Ok - we're not talking about high level - but the principles still apply.

There are 'unwritten rules' that exist within a community, but they are set and maintained by the community itself. In the case of sport, by the competitors. They are agreements for mutual benefit rather than rules.

They are not and never can be set by those that are not subject to those unwritten rules themselves.

larkim

RichN95. said:

slowbike said:

RichN95. said:

Well you draw up you own set of rules and hold people to them - and so grey areas and spirit of the rules is born. It's all BS.

BS - spirit of the rules has always been there - fair play and gentlemanly conduct is one of the fundamentals of the dinghy racing I do. Ok - we're not talking about high level - but the principles still apply.

There are 'unwritten rules' that exist within a community, but they are set and maintained by the community itself. In the case of sport, by the competitors. They are agreements for mutual benefit rather than rules.

They are not and never can be set by those that are not subject to those unwritten rules themselves.

Yes, there's nothing to stop a group of competitors agreeing that, post event, they can change the objective outcome because they agree on a majority basis that it wasn't "right". But professional sport rarely works that way because it's just too arbitrary. If it can be done by "gentlemanly conduct" (e.g. the football situation where the ball is booted off field when a player is badly injured, and then the ball returned to the opposition etc) then no-one is going to object. But when the financial and reputational stakes are so high, at some point that is going to break down and the rules require codification - or at least a reluctant acceptance that sometimes the "sporting" way isn't in fact the same as the "legal" way. E.g. see the ire about "mankad"ing in cricket - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/47714310

Pross

Statements like 'spirit of the rules' or even 'spirit of the law' are where you start getting problems. If there is some dispute over the clarity or a rule or law then the parties disputing it should seek clarification from those responsible for the rule / law. 'Spirit of the rules' usually means 'how I think it should be'.

slowbike

Pross said:

Statements like 'spirit of the rules' or even 'spirit of the law' are where you start getting problems. If there is some dispute over the clarity or a rule or law then the parties disputing it should seek clarification from those responsible for the rule / law. 'Spirit of the rules' usually means 'how I think it should be'.

well - it's always opinion - even if it's written down ....
if you kill someone- it's murder ... oh no... perhaps it's manslaughter .... or self defence ... or just driving a car when a cyclist got in the way.

No_Ta_Doctor

Hold on guys, the whole thing with spirit/letter of the law has reams of literature in philosophy and law. Trials and judges don't exist merely to establish facts, which are then examined against the letter of the law. Judgement exists because the specificity of the offence can't ever be fully incorporated into the law. On a philosophical level, we take it as granted that murder is murder whether it happens on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, yet no mention of day of the week is found in the law. It is judged as being irrelevant, not a detail that's important. While this might seem entirely obvious, we can disregard it because "the spirit of the law" is to prevent and punish murder, and it's clear and obvious that the day of the week is irrelevant. What we regard as relevant and irrelevant is what "the spirit of the law" is about. We can make laws more general, but this then requires more judgement. E.g. in doping, the designer steroids scandal showed not only that how to test for infringements was difficult, but that how to classify drugs we don't even know exist is important. The WADA code today prohibits whole ranges of unknown drugs we can't test for and which may not even exist on the basis that they might be used to enhance performance.

So here's a judgement exercise for you:

Someone develops a drug for a particular medical condition. The drug is new and not yet licensed for medical use. Perhaps it's a natural remedy of some sort, a distillation of sphagnum moss and some tropical lichens. It isn't explicitly listed in the prohibited drugs list. It also has the effect of a large EPO dose.

Which of these is against the letter of the law, which against the spirit?
1) You suffer from the condition and take the drug to alleviate it, gaining a performance boost as a side effect
2) You don't suffer from the condition and take the drug to gain performance boost
3) Same as 1) but you declare it on your forms and try and claim a TUE
4) Same as 1) but you keep it as quiet as possible and don't tell anyone
5) Same as 2), but you try and claim a TUE anyway

Anyway, that's not to comment of Freeman at all, merely to ask for some nuance - whichever way you think things are. The spirit and letter of law have never been entirely separable, may legal systems rely on the spirit of the law to inform legal judgement. This, obviously, requires interpretation.

As an aside, the US relationship to its constitution is hugely based on a divergence between interpreting spirit and letter of law.

awavey

"spirit of the rules" is always an interesting one in sports like F1, where people are literally employed to work out ways around the rules, so you get them engineering a component to leak oil to aid combustion which improves the power output, or so they think or is it just the clever people in the other teams who've thought about that and are publicising it to stop other teams going that route and gaining the advantage over them instead.

one thing about the BC doctor being there for riders though,we assume nearly every sniffle,cough,breath and heartbeat of the riders is monitored in minute detail, yet you read about Elinor Barkers endometriosis diagnosis struggle, seeing the doctor everyweek in pain that was crippling her and it took 3 years for them to get to a proper diagnosis for her.

RichN95.

No_Ta_Doctor said:

Someone develops a drug for a particular medical condition. The drug is new and not yet licensed for medical use. Perhaps it's a natural remedy of some sort, a distillation of sphagnum moss and some tropical lichens. It isn't explicitly listed in the prohibited drugs list. It also has the effect of a large EPO dose.

Which of these is against the letter of the law, which against the spirit?
1) You suffer from the condition and take the drug to alleviate it, gaining a performance boost as a side effect
2) You don't suffer from the condition and take the drug to gain performance boost
3) Same as 1) but you declare it on your forms and try and claim a TUE
4) Same as 1) but you keep it as quiet as possible and don't tell anyone
5) Same as 2), but you try and claim a TUE anyway

It's not yet licensed so it's banned and not available to use via a TUE

cruff

RichN95. said:

No_Ta_Doctor said:

Someone develops a drug for a particular medical condition. The drug is new and not yet licensed for medical use. Perhaps it's a natural remedy of some sort, a distillation of sphagnum moss and some tropical lichens. It isn't explicitly listed in the prohibited drugs list. It also has the effect of a large EPO dose.

Which of these is against the letter of the law, which against the spirit?
1) You suffer from the condition and take the drug to alleviate it, gaining a performance boost as a side effect
2) You don't suffer from the condition and take the drug to gain performance boost
3) Same as 1) but you declare it on your forms and try and claim a TUE
4) Same as 1) but you keep it as quiet as possible and don't tell anyone
5) Same as 2), but you try and claim a TUE anyway

It's not yet licensed so it's banned and not available to use via a TUE

Natural remedy? So someone finds that eating huge quantities of some hitherto undiscovered lichen gives a performance increase - kinda like caffeine only a hundred times more powerful. Nobody else knows about it - just this one team, who happens to have a rider with a condition that it alleviates. It can't be 'banned' because its not a drug, it's a naturally occurring foodstuff.

There are all sorts of moral conundrums there but because it's naturally occurring, the 'drug' argument doesn't come into it

orraloon

Remember when caffeine was going to be banned? 100% natural.

RichN95.

cruff said:

Natural remedy? So someone finds that eating huge quantities of some hitherto undiscovered lichen gives a performance increase - kinda like caffeine only a hundred times more powerful. Nobody else knows about it - just this one team, who happens to have a rider with a condition that it alleviates. It can't be 'banned' because its not a drug, it's a naturally occurring foodstuff.

There are all sorts of moral conundrums there but because it's naturally occurring, the 'drug' argument doesn't come into it

If it's a natural remedy (i.e unprocessed) then it's just food. I don't the whole WADA code is invalidated by a fantasy substance though.

ddraver

Testosterone, EPO, HGH....bloomin' ell most PEDs are "natural"

larkim

No_Ta_Doctor said:

So here's a judgement exercise for you:

Someone develops a drug for a particular medical condition. The drug is new and not yet licensed for medical use. Perhaps it's a natural remedy of some sort, a distillation of sphagnum moss and some tropical lichens. It isn't explicitly listed in the prohibited drugs list. It also has the effect of a large EPO dose.

Which of these is against the letter of the law, which against the spirit?
1) You suffer from the condition and take the drug to alleviate it, gaining a performance boost as a side effect
2) You don't suffer from the condition and take the drug to gain performance boost
3) Same as 1) but you declare it on your forms and try and claim a TUE
4) Same as 1) but you keep it as quiet as possible and don't tell anyone
5) Same as 2), but you try and claim a TUE anyway

If it isn't listed in the prohibited drugs list, it doesn't need a TUE (you can only get a TUE to approve something that is banned), so unless use of unlicensed drugs is prohibited by the rules and / or obtaining and using it is a criminal offence in the country you are doing that in, it's fair game. You declare it on your medical form (as you're required / advised to for just about anything which might cause unusual blood or urine results) and off you go.

I simply don't see the issue with that one!

Pross

VAR is a prime example of people getting worked up about the spirit or intention of sporting rules. Ultimately the rule on offside is clear cut but when the technology exists that shows someone is offside or not by 1mm and a decision gets changed supporters and pundits get up in arms about it. However, if you don't apply the rule because it's only 1mm and didn't give any advantage you need to set a rule of where the cutoff is that it should apply but then what happens when someone is 1mm beyond that? The only answer is to have a clear rule definition and apply it.

slowbike

Pross said:

VAR is a prime example of people getting worked up about the spirit or intention of sporting rules. Ultimately the rule on offside is clear cut but when the technology exists that shows someone is offside or not by 1mm and a decision gets changed supporters and pundits get up in arms about it. However, if you don't apply the rule because it's only 1mm and didn't give any advantage you need to set a rule of where the cutoff is that it should apply but then what happens when someone is 1mm beyond that? The only answer is to have a clear rule definition and apply it.

Similarly - in sailing, if you hit the mark when rounding, you should take a penalty turn (360° turn without impeding anyone else) - this has been abused in the past in tidal waters by boats hitting the uptide mark and rolling around it, doing their turn(s) whilst drifting along the course with the tide. Perfectly legal under rule 31and rule 44.1

However - Rule 2 says:

Racing Rules of Sailing said:

2. FAIR SAILING
A boat and her owner shall compete in compliance with recognized principles of sportsmanship and fair play. A boat may be penalized under this rule only if it is clearly established that these principles have been violated. The penalty shall be either disqualification or disqualification that is not excludable.

So it'll be up to competitors to protest anyone under this rule if they think rolling around a mark is unacceptable.

However the onus is on the skipper of each vessel to enforce the rules on themselves - so if you spot you've touched a mark - you should take a penalty turn - even if nobody else has spotted it and it gave you no advantage.
It's just a sense of fair play and expectation of all competitors to behave appropriately.

larkim

But the difference with that sailing one is that the sportsmanship is built into the rules. The difference with many other sports is that it isn't - but people think it is, or that it should be.

TheBigBean

Pross said:

VAR is a prime example of people getting worked up about the spirit or intention of sporting rules. Ultimately the rule on offside is clear cut but when the technology exists that shows someone is offside or not by 1mm and a decision gets changed supporters and pundits get up in arms about it. However, if you don't apply the rule because it's only 1mm and didn't give any advantage you need to set a rule of where the cutoff is that it should apply but then what happens when someone is 1mm beyond that? The only answer is to have a clear rule definition and apply it.

TV frames won't capture the exact moment when a ball is kicked, so 1mm may or may not have been offside. See run outs in cricket. Furthermore, see the whole concept of "umpire's call" in cricket for a better way of doing it.

The other problem is that everyone has been playing the offside rule based on torsos whereas the official rule is any part of the body except the arms. This difference was all very predictable, and they should have changed the rules.

slowbike

larkim said:

But the difference with that sailing one is that the sportsmanship is built into the rules. The difference with many other sports is that it isn't - but people think it is, or that it should be.

Yes - it should be - all sports should have sportsmanship & fair play built in.

We watched Our Guy in Japan last night - he was looking at their equivalent of Speedway racing - the racers help each other & respect each other - I'm not suggesting the cycle racers don't - but there are a few (and teams) who are willing to push the boundaries (of the rules) to win.

Anyway - is he still a doctor - or has that been taken away yet?

rick_chasey

VAR is a wonderful example of trying to apply a technological solution to what is a human problem.

The problem was never enough info.

The goal line technology works as it's not open to interpretation. No-one is up in arms about that.

larkim

The problem with football / VAR isn't so much that the tech or the rules are wrong or bad, it's that the players, fans, coaches etc believe they have the right to question the official to such an extent that it borders on assault or intimidation. Whether their decision is right or wrong isn't necessarily relevant, it's how compliant the players are in respecting that decision.

One season of FIFA mandating automatic red cards for any dissent at a decision and the problem would be lanced.

But they won't do it.

Anyway, what's going on with Freeman at the moment?

ddraver

Nothing much as far as I can tell.

GMC is trying to show he had a serious aversion to following basic, boring medical practice rules, Freeman is trying to get off by claiming that Shane Sutton was mean to him...