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A former Editor-in-Chief of mine at Corriere dello Sport; Paolo De Paola, also a former Pentathlete posted this remark on Facebook that I agree with: "Look Wada, your committee got a miserable satisfaction. Technically Sinner's should be called a "doping disqualification." So that all the envious, rabid and idiots on this planet can speculate on it. Good job, Wada. Sinner on the same level as a confessed Schwazer."
Now I personally don't want to get into the Schwazer case; I love athletics too much, besides motorcycling, to rage against an athlete who made a mistake, crushed by the pressure of being a No. 1.
However, I remember an informal chat with Ben Johnson who was in the Capital at the time at the Farnesina athletics field in Rome, where I went to train late at night thanks to then Director Italo Cucci who turned a blind eye because he knew I was training for the Rome Marathon. It was not the confession of the former Olympic athlete disqualified for doping with a journalist, but rather, a sentence thrown out there to an amateur athlete: "I wanted to find out how far my body could go."
A sentence that struck me. No, I do not absolve Ben, because obviously beating a clean athlete by using stanozolol, thus winning the 100 m final by setting a new world record of 9.79s is not just exploring your body's limit, it is cheating. That is why his 9.83s set on August 30, 1987, and the 9.79s obtained on September 24, 1988, were annulled following the disqualification he suffered for doping, but I understand the continuous search for maximum performance that does not spare even amateurs who spend massive sums on so-called supplements, when top athletes such as Alessio Faustini, winner of the Turin Marathon in 1992, almost did not even admit the use of ramified amino acids to improve recovery from fatigue.
In the ruling issued against Sinner, however, the World Anti-Doping Agency agreed on the penalty the world number one will have to serve regarding the clostebol case for which he was acquitted last summer by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (Itia). By virtue of this consensual award, the appeal before the Tas is dropped: no hearing next April 16-17. Sinner will be suspended from Feb. 9 to May 4 (but will be able to practice from April 13). He will miss 4 Masters 1000, but may return to the tennis court in Rome.
True, there is strict liability and Wada has enforced it, but how? Only by confirming that it is strong with the weak and weak with the strong. Indeed, who knows what would have happened if Jannik, instead of agreeing, had kept going like Andrea Iannone, who was then sentenced to four years of disqualification for taking Drostanolone, an anabolic steroid. The Italian rider defended himself by saying he had ingested contaminated meat in Malaysia before the Grand Prix. Did the current Superbike rider have any competitive advantages? We doubt it, but in his case, with no admission of guilt, albeit involuntary, Wada used a hard fist and strong powers.
Andrea's career was certainly compromised by the disqualification, Sinner's certainly not. He will miss a few tournaments, but he probably won't even lose his No. 1 status. Good for him. He was smart, very smart. Andrea, on the other hand, took the wrong advice. But can you ruin a career this way? Good thing Sinner gave up his pride. I am a sportsman, but I don't like Wada's Holy Inquisition methods.
