The Saxon weightlifter Vicky Schlittig has now been acquitted by two legal authorities, but the association and the World Anti-Doping Agency continue to push for a four-year ban.
Vicky Schlittig has long since tired of worrying about her sport, weightlifting, or her doping procedure. She used to lift weights and wanted to compete in European and World Championships – with a long-term goal: 2028 Los Angeles to compete for Germany at the Olympic Games.
Nothing remains of the ideals and dreams: Vicky Schlittig tested positive in a doping test in November 2021. And although scientific experts consider her innocent due to various unusual features of the sample and a German criminal court and a first instance of the International Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) have already acquitted her, anti-doping bodies continue to fight for rigorous punishment of the young athlete – for her four will be blocked for years.
“You should never say never”says Schlittig, who is now training to become a fitness clerk, to the ARD doping editorial team: “At the moment I’ve lost my motivation to continue playing this sport. I still love it. I enjoy watching it and it’s still a great sport for me. But it doesn’t make sense to me at the moment to do it because the International Weightlifting Federation clearly doesn’t want me.”
Fear of one Precedential judgment
Your problem: Your case is representative of injustices in the anti-doping system. In order to be able to ban athletes at all, an athlete who tests positive must prove their innocence. However, it is difficult to prove it, especially in cases where the athlete did not dope but came into contact with the banned substance unnoticed and unintentionally. Or it is impossible. Especially when weeks, sometimes months, pass between the test and the publication of the result.
Nevertheless, the International Testing Agency (ITA) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) are doing everything they can to defend the principle despite the injustices. They fight against weakening the principle for the sake of greater justice. Apparently they fear that given their already low catch rate, one or two dopers could slip through the cracks. Then, it seems, they would rather sacrifice an innocent athlete.
Travis Tygarthead of the American anti-doping agency USADA and himself a staunch anti-doping campaigner, is aware of the CAS Schlittig ruling and criticizes the actions of WADA and ITA. “We need to be more caring and compassionate and understand the rules. We need to understand how they can destroy athletes’ lives and we need to take better measures to catch dopers and ensure that intentional cheaters don’t get away with intentional cheating.”says Tygart: “We need to ensure that measures are better designed so that we do not destroy the lives of innocent athletes, as we have seen too many times.”
ITA and WADA continue to fight for Schlittig’s guilty verdict to prevent other athletes from using it as a precedent. Tygart It seems as if in this unequal battle of the anti-doping empire against a small weightlifter they want to strain the legal remedies until they get to a judge who agrees with them.
The ITA does not consider Schlittig’s justification to be sufficient. WADA argues that the CAS decision in the first instance was not “in accordance with the WADA Code and the individual decisions of the CAS”. It’s as if the WADA code didn’t allow for an acquittal after a positive test. And as a non-state court, the CAS proceeds as it sees fit. He publishes some of his decisions, but not most. The systematic nature of a law that develops through case law cannot be recognized in this way. The unpublished arbitration awards even include decisions that are considered precedents. And finally the first instance Schlittig verdict.
Contamination scenario like in the ARD film “Guilty”
Schlittig cannot prove with certainty how the substance Oral-Turinabol, a classic of GDR state doping, got into her body. However, experts believe that biochemical abnormalities, along with other factors, prove their innocence. That was enough for the CAS judge. In its first instance acquittal of Schlittig, the CAS stated under file number 2022/ADD/53 that “that based on the previous and subsequent negative tests and the low/noticeable amounts, it is likely that Ms. Schlittig was exposed to transdermal administration that was not intended and therefore she is not at fault.”
Experts like the Dutchman Douwe de Boer, but also other renowned biochemists with whom the ARD doping editorial team spoke have confirmed to Schlittig that, based on the latest research, contamination through the skin is likely in their case – the transmission of a very small amount, possibly accidentally or even as a result of sabotage. The ARD doping editorial team pointed out such a scenario in the 2022 film “Guilty” and filmed a scientific experiment on it. In this experiment, countless samples turned out to be doping positive just through fleeting skin contact when the doping agent was on the skin.
But in the Schlittig case, there was initially no quarter: the potentially innocent weightlifter was provisionally banned for almost two years. So now even the US doping hunter, who is otherwise known for his resoluteness Tygart which calls on anti-doping bodies to be more flexible in cases like Vicky Schlittig’s. Tygart once had the notorious doper Lance Armstrong brought down with a lot of patience.
“It’s a fascinating case”says the head of USADA, “Everything speaks in favor of administration via the skin, the experts say there is no performance-enhancing effect. The case was decided by a CAS sole arbitrator. We should be able to trust his judgment. Now the procedure is being dragged out and the Athlete forced to spend large sums of money to ultimately get a fair outcome. But if we penalize athletes who are not guilty of intentional fraud or negligence, that’s a problem. I don’t believe the system is fair to athletes bypasses.”