Sports Minister Olivia Grange says she still has confidence in the board of the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO) led by Chairman Alexander Williams and anticipates that the error that led to the girls’ under 20 4x100 metres world record not being ratified will not be repeated.
JADCO came under scrutiny last April after Jamaica’s 42.58 seconds clocking at the Carifta Games World Under-20 100m champion Tina Clayton, Tia Clayton, Brianna Lyston, and Serena Cole was not ratified because a member of the team was not tested after the race. The reason given was because of a practice not to test athletes twice in 24 hours, which is contrary to global standards.
Since then, Jamaica broke the record again last August at the World Under-20 Championships in Colombia in 42.59, a time that has since been ratified.
While there are still lingering sentiments about the error months after the incident, Grange said she expects that there will not be a repeat of the incident given the steps that have been taken since.
“I have seen changes. So I do not expect that what happened will happen again. We have taken corrective measures, and we have retrained our staff in that area. So we expect things going forward to be OK,” Grange told The Gleaner.
In the immediate aftermath of the incident there were calls for the board to resign, with a former JADCO executive director in an interview with The Gleaner last June saying that apologies could not reverse the situation.
However, Grange expressed her confidence in Williams’ leadership, believing that dissolving the board, in this case, would not have been the right call.
“I have confidence in the board. I have confidence in the chairman. When something goes wrong ... those who have assigned responsibility, those at the leadership level get the blame. But that is not necessarily the way to solve the problem or to deal with the matter,” Grange said. “Sometimes that has to be done, but when you have an investigation and you get a full understanding as to what the problem was, then you provide the solution to that problem, not respond to what appears to be popular, but do what you have to do to ensure that you correct the problem.”
Meanwhile, World Anti-Doping Agency president Wiltof Banka, in an interview with Radio Jamaica Sports, said collaborative efforts are necessary to avoid future problems.
“It is all about collaboration, of course. It is extremely important to change the information and to know what the procedures look like. This particular case (the Under-20 record) is not WADA regulation because it is a World Athletics (regulation), and there are rules for all members to be tested. I heard about the case, but I believe applicable entities like JADCO know how to do it.
Banka is in Jamaica for the World Anti-doping Agency Forum for Ministers in the Caribbean, which started yesterday.