The Tribune

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas Anti-Doping Commission has warned local sports bodies to “disassociate” themselves from allegations of doping raised in a report by international news agency Al Jazeera last month.

In December, Al Jazeera broadcast a documentary that suggested the Bahamas was a source from where top world athletes allegedly received dosages of banned performance enhancing drugs.

In a statement, the Bahamas Anti-Doping Commission (BADC) said it would take steps in accordance with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) code as evidence unfolds, which deals with assisting, encouraging, aiding, abetting, conspiring, covering up or any other type of intentional complicity involving an anti-doping rule violation or attempted anti-doping rule violation.

BADC Chairman Jerome Lightbourne said he and his colleagues considered a statement on the controversy surrounding Al Jazeera’s report to be “imperative.”

“We, who have been mandated by the government of the Bahamas and in accordance with WADA to promote ‘clean sports’ and fair play by those who represent the nation in competition, felt obligated to officially address the matter,” he said. “This is a very serious situation and the BADC has to be a leading voice when these issues surface.”

Last month, a documentary from Al Jazeera’s Investigation Unit entitled “The Dark Side- Secrets Of The Sports Dopers” revealed how former American sprinter Tim Montgomery, in an interview with British hurdler Liam Collins, met a doctor in the Bahamas and was allegedly supplied with his first dose of the banned substance testosterone and celebrated with a fish dinner at the Fish Fry.

As a result of what was discovered, the news agency launched an investigation in which Mr Collins went undercover in an attempt to expose the widespread nature of performance enhancing drugs in global sports.

In order to get information, Mr Collins told medical professionals tied to the trade of performance enhancing drugs - including growth hormone (HGH), erythropoietin (EPO) and testosterone - that he wanted another shot at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Part of his investigation took him to New Providence, where undercover video further revealed his meeting with two Bahamian doctors - Dr Cyprian Strachan, who once sat on a Caribbean-wide anti-doping body for bodybuilding, and Dr Nicholas Fox.

Dr Fox was shown on camera claiming that three of the Golden Girls, the Bahamian sprint relay team that triumphed in the 2000 Olympic games in Sydney, Australia were “patients of mine.” Although Dr Fox did not mention names when asked if he helped them, he said not with banned substances but with “more traditional medications.”

When later contacted by Al Jazeera, Dr Fox reportedly said he had been lying to Mr Collins, could not get banned drugs and had never seen professional athletes.

Dr Strachan later said he had never supplied banned drugs.

International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) Councilwoman Pauline Davis-Thompson, when contacted by Al Jazeera, emphatically denied the allegations, saying that she condemned “athletes who dope” as “morally warped and gutless,” according to the report.

Ms Davis-Thompson, a member of the Olympic gold medal-winning quartet, also categorically denied that she had ever met Dr Fox.