USADA's Flawed Response to its Moonlighting Problems

USADA has responded to the allegations that it failed to follow its own rules while entering into a contract with Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao to provide drug testing services. The dispute centers on whether USADA was acting properly in granting Mayweather a "therapeutic use exemption" for the use of an IV in advance of his fight with Pacquiao.

The contract that Mayweather and USADA entered into stipulated that USADA was to follow the rules that it has a mandate to follow, specifically those of WADA (The full contract is here in PDF).

The contract clearly states that "Mayweather and Pacquiao agree that WADA [policies] set forth the procedures for which Mayweather and Pacquiao may apply to USADA for a theraputic use exemption."

However, in USADA's response to allegations today it cited not the WADA policies referred to in its contract with Mayweather, but those of the Nevada State Athletic Commission:

Mr. Mayweather applied for and was granted a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) by USADA for an IV infusion of saline and vitamins that was administered prior to his May 2 fight against Manny Pacquiao.  Mr. Mayweather’s use of the IV was not prohibited under the NSAC rules at that time and would not be a violation of the NSAC rules today.  Nonetheless, because Mr. Mayweather was voluntarily taking part in a USADA program, and therefore subject to the rules of the WADA Code, he took the additional step of applying for a TUE after the IV infusion was administered in order remain in compliance with the USADA program.

This makes no sense on several levels.

First, USADA is not governed by NSAC rules nor does it have any authority to implement the rules of NSAC.  Bob Bennett, executive director of the NSAC made this clear in the LA Times today;

"I have specifically articulated and memorialized to USADA that [NSAC] is the sole authority that can authorize a therapeutic-use exemption for a fighter in the state of Nevada."

USADA, somewhat bizarrely, is invoking rules of another organization as if they were its own. They are not.

Second, the logic makes no sense. If NSAC rules supersede those of WADA in this case, then there would be no cause for Mayweather to further apply for a TUE under the WADA Code. The WADA Code makes no exemptions for the State of Nevada or any place else. But Mayweather's contract with USADA makes no mention of deference to NSAC rules. Thus, what USADA is claiming makes no sense.

The bottom line is that USADA appears to be freelancing here. They signed a contract with Mayweather under which he agreed to comply with the WADA Code. Upon being found out not to have followed that Code, USADA after-the-fact claims that a different set of rules apply, those of the NSAC. But NSAC, rightly, explains that USADA has no jurisdiction and no authority when it comes to enforcing their rules. USADA is clearly in the wrong here.

It is a mess an an embarrassment for USADA. The easy solution here would be for the US Congress to simply stipulate that as a recipient of more than $10 $9 million per year of taxpayer money, USADA should focus on its Congressionally-directed mission, and leave the moonlighting to others.

USADA's Moonlighting Gets it in Trouble Again

At SB Nation, Thomas Hauser has an excellent long-form essay on the hot water that USADA (the US Anti-Doping Agency)  has itself into after contracting with Floyd Mayweather and Manny Paquiao earlier this year to provide drug testing in advance of their big fight.

The gist of the story is that Mayweather violated USADA's rules in advance of the fight by being administered an IV at his home, but USADA did not notify Nevada boxing authorities until almost 3 weeks later, when it retroactively granted Mayweather an exemption (a "therapeutic use exemption" or TUE) . This led Bob Bennett, the head boxing official in Nevada to comment:

“The TUE for Mayweather’s IV - and the IV was administered at Floyd’s house, not in a medical facility, and wasn’t brought to our attention at the time - was totally unacceptable. I’ve made it clear to Travis Tygart that this should not happen again. We have the sole authority to grant any and all TUEs in the state of Nevada. USADA is a drug-testing agency. USADA should not be granting waivers and exemptions. Not in this state. We are less than pleased that USADA acted the way it did.”

This is not the first time that USADA has gotten into some hot water over its moonlighting for money with boxing. I wrote a longish piece back in 2012 about USADA's role in a previous debacle, and I concluded then:

So USADA finds itself in a situation where it is being paid directly by a fight promoter to test an athlete who does not fall under USADA's jurisdiction. Nonetheless, USADA announces sanctions and finds itself embroiled in a messy public spat. However this situation works itself out in the boxing world, the fallout for USADA could be much broader, now that it is much more in the public eye.

For USADA the lessons are clear. First, practice what you preach. Second, do not engage in a contractual relationship with individual athletes. Third, stick to your formal obligations under the mandate provided by the US Congress within the Olympic movement. If that mandate is to be expanded, request that such changes be formally adopted in the USADA governing charter.

USADA scored a big victory with its Reasoned Decision against Lance Armstrong. However, that does not mean that USADA is free from following rules or good practices. The mess that USADA finds itself in related to boxing suggests that the organization has some work to do to shore up its practices.

I've just submitted an op-ed on this issue, so will reserve further comment until that gets placed. This is an important, if complex issue. I highly recommend Hauser's piece here and a summary at Deadspin.

UK Parliament Publishes Suppressed WADA Doping Prevalence Study

The UK Parliament held an evidentiary hearing yesterday on doping in athletics. The big news that followed was British marathoner, now retired, and world record holder Paula Radcliffe issuing a statement denying that she had doped. (That is Paula above in 2001, protesting Russian runners who had failed a drug test.) Apparently, Radcliffe appears in the leaked IAAF blood data with suspicious values.

The UK Parliament followed up the hearing by releasing a 2013 WADA study on the prevalence of doping (here in PDF). The headlines of that study were reported in the NY Times in 2013. The release of the full study is important nonetheless.

Here is the study's conclusion, with its bottom line (click to zoom in):

The values here are consistent with more recent research that suggests that as many as half of elite athletes have doped. These two studies together suggest that doping in endemic in elite sports.

What Does a Merged CONCACAF & CONMEBOL Look Like?

The ongoing FIFA scandal has centered on two of FIFA's 6 confederations, CONCACAF and CONMEBOL. That is not to say that the other four have corruption-free records, only that the North, Central and South American confederations (yes, the Caribbean is in there too) are the ones most likely to use the US banking system, and thus expose themselves to the Feds.

In this short post, I ask a simple question. Letting imaginations run wild, what if CONCACAF and CONMEBOL were just razed to the ground, and a new confederation integrating both were to be created from the rubble?

Here is how FIFA's confederations look today (or according to most recent data from the UN):

You can see that there are huge disparities in number of members, economic size and population. This unevenness does not set itself up for effective governance.

What would it look like if CONMEBOL and CONCACAF were merged into a new "Football Confederation of the Americas or FCA)? (And I'll add OFC to the AFC, just for fun too). Here is that answer:

There would be much greater balance in membership among confederations as well as in economic size or population. FIFA could, for instance, set required criteria for a "confederation" to have either a combined population of 1 billion or combined economic size of >$20 trillion (2015 US$ at market exchange rates). Or it could be something else fairly objective.

This little thought experiment suggests that while the corruption scandal makes the idea of demolishing CONCACAF and CONMEBOL appealing, there might be other reasons why it makes sense.

Another View: Age Progression of sub-10 Second 100m (Men)

The graph above (work in progress) shows the same data on male sprinters who ran sub-10 seconds 100m as I showed last week. This time, I have connected the dots representing the same individual. Every once in a while the lines are do not have a slope of one, because birthdays and track evens don't always align neatly. The various blue dots show runners who did not break 10 seconds in successive years. The source is IAAF.

The graph shows (again) that increasing longevity helps to explain the record number of fast sprinters. I'll have a full set of comparable graphs for women up before too long.

Here is that original graph and post.

Rothenberg Vanishes

A few days ago I wrote a widely read and circulated post about conflicts of interest at US Soccer, as related to the ongoing dispute they have with the NASL over league designation criteria. You can read about it here.

I noted in the post that Alan Rothenberg was a member of the US Soccer committee that proposes criteria for league designation within the US soccer professional leagues. Rothenberg is closely tied to the MLS and continues to have substantial financial relationships.

Today, a commenter (thanks @sportsfrk!) pointed out that Rothenberg has disappeared from the committee, as listed on the US Soccer website.

Here yesterday, gone today. Unfortunately, US Soccer's COI problem persists. And it looks like they also have a bit of a transparency problem too.

What is a Conflict of Interest?

In an interview with The Guardian, IAAF president Sebastian Coe offers a three-part test for having a conflict of interest:

For a conflict to exist it needs [1] not to be registered, [2] you need to not be able to stand behind processes and procedure and [3] thirdly you have to behave badly.

Unfortunately, Coe's COI definition stands in stark contrast to those used in governments and businesses. In fact, none of Coe's three criteria are actually relevant to the existence of an actual or perceived conflict of interest.

Let's look at some examples.

From the world of medicine:

A conflict of interest is a set of conditions in which professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as a patient’s welfare or the validity of research) tends to be unduly influenced by a secondary influence (such as financial gain)… The secondary interest is usually not illegitimate in itself, and indeed it may even be a necessary and desirable part of professional practice. Only its relative weight in professional decisions is problematic. The aim is not to eliminate or necessarily to reduce financial gain or other secondary interests (such as preference for family and friends or the desire for prestige and power). It is rather to prevent these secondary factors from dominating or appearing to dominate the relevant primary interest in the making of professional decisions.

Thompson D. F., 1993. Understanding Financial Conflicts of Interest. The New England Journal of Medicine, 329:573-576.

From the world of science (US National Academy of Sciences, PDF):

The term "conflict of interest" means something more than individual bias. There must be an interest, ordinarily financial, that could be directly affected by the work of the committee. Conflict of interest requirements are objective and prophylactic. They are not an assessment of one's actual behavior or character, one's ability to act objectively despite the conflicting interest, or one's relative insensitivity to particular dollar amounts of specific assets because of one's personal wealth. Conflict of interest requirements are objective standards designed to eliminate certain specific, potentially compromising situations from arising, and thereby to protect the individual, the other members of the committee, the institution, and the public interest. The individual, the committee, and the institution should not be placed in a situation where others could reasonably question, and perhaps discount or dismiss, the work of the committee simply because of the existence of such conflicting interests.

From the United Nations:

Risks of conflicts of interest can generally be found at two levels:

• as organizational conflicts of interest; and

• as personal conflicts of interest.

An organizational conflict of interest arises where, because of other activities or relationships, an organization is unable to render impartial services, the organization's objectivity in performing mandated work is or might be impaired, or the organization has an unfair competitive advantage. A personal conflict of interest is a situation where a person's private interests — such as outside professional relationships or personal financial assets — interfere or may be perceived to interfere with his/her performance of official duties.

As staff, we should always strive to avoid situations where we benefit personally or allow others to benefit personally from the decisions we make for the UN. We need to be aware of how our actions, in the absence of an explanation, may appear or be interpreted by others. Sometimes, the perception of a conflict of interest raises as much ethical concern as does an actual conflict of interest. Conflict of interest situations do not necessarily imply wrongdoing. However, if they are not identified and managed appropriately, they can compromise our work and the Organization's integrity. When each of us avoids the perception and the reality of a conflict of interest, we can help preserve our independence and impartiality. One of the key steps in avoiding or resolving a conflict of interest is to ensure that we place the UN's interests above our own.

The UN is sensitive to the ways in which a staff member's private financial affairs could create potential conflicts of interest. Staff must refrain from managing or holding financial interests in any business if either the individual or the business has the opportunity to benefit from such an association by way of the staff member's position with the United Nations.

From the world of sport (IOC, here in PDF) :

In the following non-exhaustive list of examples, the circumstances in which a conflict of interests could arise are:

– personal and / or material involvement (salary, shareholding, various benefits) with suppliers of the Olympic party concerned;
– personal and / or material involvement with sponsors, broadcasters, various contracting parties;
– personal and / or material involvement with an organisation liable to benefit from the assistance of the Olympic party concerned (including subsidy, approval clause or election).

It is the personal responsibility of each person to avoid any case of conflict of interests. Faced with a situation of a potential conflict of interests, the person concerned must refrain from expressing an opinion, from making or participating in making a decision or accepting any form of benefit whatsoever.

The IAAF actually has a reasonable COI policy, consistent with those examples listed above. The real question for Sebastian Coe is whether or not he thinks it applies to him. If not, how can he credibly complain about athletes who dope because they don't think that the rules apply to them?

Let's end the examples with another COI policy, this one from Nike (PDF):

Conflicts of interest arise when an employee uses his or her position at NIKE for personal gain or when the employee’s personal interests conflict with NIKE interests. All employees must avoid any actions or relationships that could conflict with, or appear to conflict with, the interests of NIKE. For example, having a substantial investment or position in any business that deals with NIKE, doing NIKE business with close friends or relatives, supervising family members, relatives, or those with whom you are romantically involved, using NIKE’s name or reputation to gain personal favors, and accepting or offering payments, gifts or favors from or to companies doing business with NIKE are situations that could result in an actual or the appearance of a conflict of interest. 

A High Wire Act by US Soccer

Yesterday the Financial Times reported that the North American Soccer League (NASL), a second tier US professional league, has sent a letter to US Soccer complaining that it was engaging in anti-trust violations that placed obstacles before the NASL moving up to first tier professional soccer.

The New York Daily News explains:

The allegations come from the North American Soccer League, a smaller rival to MLS that consists of 11 teams, including the New York Cosmos.

Noted sports attorney Jeffrey Kessler, who represents the NASL, aired his concerns in a July 23 letter obtained by the Daily News. The 13-page letter is addressed to U.S. Soccer Federation leaders Sunil Gulati and Daniel Flynn.

Kessler says in the letter that the USSF creates unlawful hurdles to ensure that MLS soccer remains America’s only “Division I” league.

“It is only through the removal of these anticompetitive requirements that the USSF can come into compliance with the law,” writes Kessler.

Yes, this is the same Kessler who is representing Tom Brady in the ongoing 'Deflategate" saga involving the NFL. Here are some of the relevant details of the NASL letter.

The NASL wants to be a top tier US league, as defined by US Soccer, the governing body for the sport in the United States. The MLS is the only league that meets those criteria. You can see the criteria for what is called "Division I" status here in PDF. It is pretty turgid stuff, focused on things like entry fees and stadium sizes and so on.

The issue, according to Kessler, is that US Soccer is proposing to change its criteria for attaining Division I status in a way that would leave the NASL on the outside looking in:

The letter complains of several proposed changes the USSF has made to its standards for recognizing professional soccer leagues. To qualify as a top division, a league would need 16 teams, 75% of them based in cities with more than two million people.

“Doubling the population criteria now is an anticompetitive bait and switch, with the purpose of entrenching MLS’s monopoly position at the very time when the NASL is threatening to become a serious competitor,” Kessler writes, noting that the requirement regarding the population of markets where teams are located is “so unreasonably high that even the National Hockey League could not satisfy it.”

The use of the the word "anticompetitive" is a not-so-subtle signal that a lawsuit is probably in the works if US Soccer does in fact make the proposals into policy.

So far, this is just a normal sort of dispute about policies and procedures. What makes it less normal is the fact that US Soccer appears to be doing its business in the absence of an conflict of interest policies. You can check for yourself: Here are the US Soccer Bylaws in PDF. A search of the US Soccer website finds nothing. If US Soccer has such a policy, it is well hidden. I would love to be corrected on this.

It is remarkable that US Soccer appears to operate without the benefit or protection of COI policies. Such policies are standard in modern organizations. The NFL has a COI policy. So too does the NBA. As does the USOC. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find any big business or sports organization that operates without COI. Its like walking a high wire with no net. Sure you can do it, but at some point there are consequences.

Disregard for basic principles of corporate governance is exactly the sort of behavior that has FIFA and CONCACAF in hot water with the Feds, and US Soccer is tempting fate by apparently following these same practices.

So, why might this matter?

US Soccer has long faced allegations of deep COI with MLS. For instance, Sunil Gulati, president of US Soccer, was a long time employee of Robert Kraft, a MLS owner and beneficiary of many US Soccer decisions (like the hosting US national team games in his stadiums). Gulati's academic CV still lists him as being on the Kraft payroll (here in PDF), but according to Grant Wahl of Sports Illustrated that may have ended late last year.

Now back to the NASL vs. MLS.

US Soccer has a committee called the "Professional League Standards Committee" which is responsible for the criteria which determine league designation (details here in PDF). Presumably this committee is the source of the proposed changes to US Soccer rules for Division I designation that motivated Kessler's letter on behalf on the NASL.

That committee has four members. One member is Alan Rothenberg, a giant in the business of US professional soccer, who helped start the MLS. That alone might suggest a strong bias in favor of MLS.But far more troubling that Rothenberg chairs a company that is working on MLS expansion (in Atlanta) among many other financial ties to the MLS.

Thus, a US Soccer official is involved in proposing rules that, allegedly, hinder the expansion of the NASL to the benefit of the MLS which just so happens to have a significant financial stake in the MLS. In short, Rothenberg looks to benefit financially from his decision making for US Soccer. Boy, that sure doesn't look good.  If US Soccer had COI policies in place, this sort of unseemly thing probably would be untenable and would have saved everyone from what might be an ugly legal fight between NASL and MLS. The set up is probably not great for US professional soccer either.

NASL has its own governance problems, of course, and for all I know they too may lack COI policies. However, that does not excuse US Soccer from what looks from the outside to be the practice of boys-club-style-pocket-lining. While we've been distracted by the remarkable goings on at FIFA, it turns out the US Soccer also desperately needs to get its house in order. Putting in place and then enforcing basic policies for managing actual and perceived conflicts of interest would be a good place to start.

A New Sports Governance Center at the University of Colorado

CU-Boulder Department of Athletics explores creation of Sports Governance Center

August 31, 2015
The University of Colorado Department of Athletics is embarking on an ambitious new initiative between academics and athletics – the proposed creation of a Sports Governance Center (SGC), which would be among the first of its kind in the nation.

If approved, the SGC would be an innovative academic unit within Athletics, with a mission that would focus on teaching, research and service. The goal is to conduct leading research, education and outreach related to the governance of sport, including college athletics and professional sports.

A proposal for the center will be submitted in the spring to the Graduate School for approval, said CU Professor Roger Pielke Jr., who is spearheading the effort along with Athletic Director Rick George.

Public lectures and events related to the center are being planned in the fall and a 2000-level, three-credit course called Governance of Sport is in the works for spring. Pielke taught a similar course in the spring 2014.

The vision for the center focuses on the implementation of rules and the exercise of power as related to the governing of sports. The subject matter would run the gamut from concussion studies, to doping in sports, to the ongoing FIFA scandal and the role of the NCAA and big time athletes at the modern American university.

The center concept is the result of an initial collaboration between the athletic director and Pielke, an environmental studies professor whose research in recent years has focused on sports governance.

“This is another collaboration between athletics and our faculty,” George said. “Given the topics that are going on nationally in the NCAA with governance, it’s really the perfect time for us both to work together to better understand the issues.”

Pielke, who in 2002 led efforts to create the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research within the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at CU-Boulder, said the Sports Governance Center will further the goal of “better integrating athletics and academics on the Boulder campus.”

“The new SGC will also represent a significant step nationally in the currently-evolving role that college athletics play on major university campuses across the United States,” Pielke said.

Center organizers plan to announce affiliates from across the CU-Boulder campus including faculty members in business, medicine, law, engineering and social sciences, along with members of an external advisory board, in coming months.

Pielke said numerous faculty members and researchers across campus are already engaged in scholarship related to sports and the Sports Governance Center would help to support their work and foster new collaborations.

Pielke said one of the reasons the center’s creation is so exciting is because it is so interdisciplinary and would draw on the natural and social sciences, as well as the humanities. It is also very international, due to the fact that sports take place in every nation and are overseen by international organizations, such as the International Olympic Committee.

“Like any issue that is societal in nature, no single university department can adequately capture the complexity of this topic,” Pielke said. “We are focusing on a topic then using the resources of traditional disciplines to assemble the expertise we need.”

Contact:
Roger Pielke Jr., 303-735-3940
pielke@colorado.edu

Julie Poppen, (O) 303-492-4007 (M) 303-503-4922
julie.poppen@colorado.edu

- See more at: http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2015/08/31/cu-boulder-department-athletics-explores-creation-sports-governance-center#sthash.yCbNIotT.dpuf

Concussion Movie Trailer

Sebastian Coe's Conflicts of Interest at IAAF

Sebastian Coe is the recently elected president of the IAAF. His relationship with Nike, as a potential conflict of interest, has been well documented. Coe is reportedly paid in the "six figures" by Nike, which is presently linked to the ongoing FIFA investigations and under investigation for its Nike Project.

The Daily Mail provided further reason why there is at least the appearance of a conflict of interest:

But the association with Nike is more of an issue when there are other areas of concern. For instance, the decision by the IAAF to award Eugene — close to Nike's headquarters in Beaverton — the 2021 World Athletics Championships without a formal bidding process.

The president of European Athletics, Norway's Svein Arne Hansen, complained of a 'complete lack of process' on behalf of Gothenburg, who at least wanted the chance to bid.

I discovered this morning that Coe is also associated with Mondo SpA, the Italian company responsible for installing virtually all track surfaces for the Olympics and World Championships. Under IAAF ethics rules for conflict of interest, such a relationship with a supplier to IAAF is prohibited (here in PDF).

Coe's COI situations -- as unambiguously defined by the IAAF - provides a great test of the meaningfulness of ethics rules at IAAF. Are they there for show? Or are they taken seriously?

The full IAAF COI guidelines can be seen below.

Not Just More Fast Sprinters, It is Greater Longevity

This week I have been exploring a question. Why is it that more men (& women) are running faster times at the elite levels of sprinting? Data can provide some insight to this question, but probably cannot answer it definitively.

So far, I have established that there are more fast sprinters than ever and the age distribution of sprinters has increased dramatically (note: we have processed these data for women also, and will post in due course). There is also a notable break-point in 2007 when it seems clear that something changed in sprinting. But what?

The graph at the top of this post takes this analysis one step further by asking how many men broke 10 seconds in the 100m for the very first time (IAAF data readily available since 2002). For most years the data are fairly constant at 3-6 runners, with the exception of 2004 (1) and 2008 (10) and this year, 2015 (12). There is not a consistent World Championship or Olympic signal.

So part of the story in the record number of fast sprinters this year are that there are simply more fast runners in the mix for the first time. However, even accounting for the upsurge in fast runners in 2015 (say, 6-9 extra), there are still more fast runners than ever.

The other part of this story can be seen in the graphs below. These graphs take this pool of runners sunning sub-10 for the first time, and asks what their average ages are and shows the age distribution. Here is the data since 1999:

You can see that there is little change in the average, trending a bit younger, and also with the range across first-timers becoming a bit younger. The graph below looks at the period of the rapid increase in fast runners since 2007 and shows little evidence of change.

This tells us that another part of the story of more runners running faster than ever is greater longevity of runners. More runners who broke 10 seconds for the first time prior to 2015 are continuing to run at that speed than was the case in the past. So the total number of sub-10 runners accumulates.

Bottom line: The record number of fast runners in 2015 is partly due to more fast runners but part of it is also due to more fast runners running fast for more years.

So what explains this?

Better training and conditioning? Better use of legal supplements and performance enhancing substances and technologies? Undetected use of prohibited performance enhancing technologies?  Faster track technologies?  Other factors?

It is likely impossible to tease out the quantitative role of the various contributors to the record number of fast runners, which I'd speculate may each play some role in the observed trend since 2007.

Thanks to David Epstein (@davidepstein) and Ross Tucker (@scienceofsport), who I've learned a great deal from and whose analyses have helped to inspire this series. Thanks also to Torie Duke, student assistant extraordinaire for patiently responding to countless data requests. More analyses to follow. Comments welcomed.

Why is Kazakhstan in UEFA?

Why is Kazakhstan considered part of Europe soccer-wise?

— Grant Wahl (@GrantWahl) August 27, 2015

I have had this same question myself before. More generally, why does UEFA, the "European" federation, not resemble the EU? The EU has 28 members and UEFA 54, including Turkey, Israel, Russia and, yes, Kazakhstan.

My search for an answer took me to this neat paper:

Dietschy, P., Ranc, D., & Sonntag, A. (2009). Parallel Myths, Popular Maps: The Europe of Soccer. Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society, 1(2), 125-144.

Below are the relevant passages. In short, blame Charles de Gaulle.

and also...

Scale of Doping - Simple Math

Actual scale of doping in IAAF World T&F: 1933 Athletes (1043M & 890W) Best estimate of doping prevalence = 14-39% Implies 271-754 dopers.

— Roger Pielke Jr. (@RogerPielkeJr) August 26, 2015

For my later use, posted here so I can find it easily.

Widening Age Distribution of Fast Sprinters (Men)

The graph above is an initial follow-up of yesterday's post on the intriguing increase of the number of men and women sprinters running exceedingly fast times. The graph shows the ages of each sprinter which appeared in yesterday's graph (note that some data points might represent more than one person). Note that the age data is available from 1999 (and for some reason 2001 is missing from the IAAF website - which is excellent for these purposes), and obvious 2015 is to date.

What is interesting about this graph is that the age distribution of sprinters running the 100m is less than 10 seconds has expanded. You can see this a bit more clearly in the graph below, which shows the average and +/- one standard deviation values for the data in the graph above.

What does the data show?

• From 2002-2007 100m men's sprinters became younger and the distribution of ages contracted.
• From 2007 to 2015 sprinters became older but the distribution of ages expanded (more so at the older end).

This is work in progress. 

We are asking and answering a few other questions of the data, and for women also. I'll post those up as they become available. There is nothing (yet) said here about causality, and I am fairly sure that this data will not lend itself to any firm conclusions. However, it can help us to ask some smart questions. Meantime, comments, questions welcomed.

Stay tuned more to come!

More Fast Sprinters than Ever

The graphs above show the number of athletes in IAAF competitions that ran under 10 seconds (men) and 11 seconds (women) each year since 1997. I picked 1997 as the starting date because that is when an initial version of the "athletes whereabouts" program was put into place under the IAAF.

From 1997 to 2007 there was a sharp drop in the number of men and women running under 10 seconds and 11 seconds respectively. But since then, something remarkable happened. The number of men running under 10 seconds increased from 6 to 27 (so far this year) and women from 4 to 20 (so far this year). I've added a linear trend (in red) to each graph.

You don't have to run any fancy statistics to see that the world of sprinting is qualitatively different from 2008 to 2015 than it was from 1997 to 2007. What it is cannot be gleaned from the numbers alone, but it is interesting.

This post inspired by posts at track-stats.com and John Mulkeen. Data courtesy IAAF.

Richard Conway Interviews Sepp Blatter

This is a very revealing interview with Sepp Blatter. It seems clear that he just does not understand what good governance actually entails. He sees himself as the head of a state. Really interesting and worth watching for FIFA followers.

Caffeine and Cycling

It should be obvious, but often isn't. The use of PEDs is not against the rules or norms of sport. The use of prohibited PEDs is.

See the video above for cyclists in the Vuelta a España 2015 talking about their coffee consumption. It is a lot. Cyclists drink coffee because it is a proven PED and its perfectly legal.

UPDATED: Qatar Gets a Bad Report Card on Human Trafficking from US State Department

UPDATED 4 Nov 2015 (to reflect the possibility of an action plan that adds two years to the Tier 2 Watch List status).

Every year the US government releases a report card of sorts on human trafficking around the world. The 2015 report is just out from the State Department and they do not have good news for Qatar, which has been dogged by continuing allegations over its treatment of workers who are building the infrastructure for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

The State Department ranks countries in of 4 tiers, as illustrated in the graphic below. For the second year in a row, Qatar received the second to bottom ranking, the "Tier 2 Watch List." The State Department gives Qatar some credit for some positive steps (at p. 285 here in PDF) but faults the nation on its implementation and reporting. Thus, Qatar remains near the botom of the rankings.

What that means under US law is that next year, 2016, Qatar will have to either produce an action plan, or if they don't, move up or move down. A country can be ranked as Tier 2 Watch List for only 2 consecutive years, which can be extended to 4 years if they produce an action plan. A country placed in Tier 3 may see US sanctions (source: US State in PDF):

[G]overnments of countries on Tier 3 may be subject to certain restrictions on bilateral assistance, whereby the U.S. government may withhold or withdraw non-humanitarian, non-trade-related foreign assistance. In addition, certain countries on Tier 3 may not receive funding for government employees’ participation in educational and cultural exchange programs. Consistent with the TVPA [Trafficking Victims Protection Act], governments subject to restrictions would also face U.S. opposition to the provision of assistance (except for humanitarian, trade-related, and certain development-related assistance) by international financial institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. 

It is unclear what, exactly, a Tier 3 designation would mean for Qatar and its preparations for the 2022 World Cup, but it would clearly not be a good thing for the tiny nation, or for FIFA.

The US president can waive the ranking if it is determined to be in the interests of the United States. Anything is of course possible, especially in a lame duck presidency, but I think it hard to imagine that President Obama would give Qatar a pass if it does not show marked improvements in 2016. It does seem logical that Qatar would produce an action plan. On the other hand, Reuters reports that the Obama administration forced the State Department to change some of its 2015 rankings to help with its proposed trade agreement.

The bottom line here is that Qatar has effectively been given no more than 4 years year to improve the situation facing workers, or face considerable negative publicity (at least) and possible US and other sanctions. That will only make the World Cup 2022 more controversial than it already is, if you can believe that.

FIFA Reform Checklist for Aspiring Presidents

My latest contribution is up at Sporting Intelligence. In it I discuss the checklist (above) that I prepared to help put some substance into the FIFA presidential horse race.

Comments welcomed!