Home / Why Julio Maglione*** Is As Useful To Clean Swimmers As A FINA Fart In A Spacesuit

Why Julio Maglione*** Is As Useful To Clean Swimmers As A FINA Fart In A Spacesuit

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Editorial

I admit upfront that I’m writing a second editorial this day under the influence of performance-detracting substances, typhus and various other shots coursing through vein as I contemplate words that, nonetheless, spark some of the clearest thought I ever had: Julio Maglione*** (that’s our new asterisk denoting FINA officials who should resign for bringing the sport of swimming into disrepute) is unfit for purpose and should step down from the FINA presidency without hesitation.

Why? Well, we start with his view on the WADA IP report lady by Prof. Richard McLaren. The independent commission, says the chap from Uruguay, that towering temple of swimming excellence, has “exceeded its power” by uncovering state-sponsored doping in Russia.

No, surely the chaps at the Sputniknews misheard him when they report Maglione as saying (sit down those of you less solid than Shirley Babashoff):

“Its [WADA Commission] members exceeded their powers. For me WADA, and sooner or later this needs to be clarified, is an organisation with a function to control the doping abuse, approve the relevant rules and not to talk about the situation in a particular country, it must be done by the head of the Olympic Games, that is by the International Olympic Committee.”

In other words, one might imagine – ‘shut up. We’ll tell you if we’ve judged anything to be bad news’.

NB: Sputnik was launched in November 2014 by Rossiya Segodnya, an agency wholly owned and operated by the Russian government, which was created by an Executive Order of the President of Russia on December 9, 2013

Perhaps they heard right. Anyhow, here’s an explanation, yon Julio Maglione, ye who broke a presidential campaign pledge to stay for two terms only but want to fight on well into your 80s to keep the top seat in swimming for reasons best know to yourself (competence in the job cannot be one of them): the reason why WADA has had to step in (and thank God it did) is because you, FINA,  the signatory to the WADA Code have failed miserably, decade after decade, to stand up for clean athletes and cut out the rot of doping in the primary sport under the umbrella of the organisation of which you are now chief among custodians (that a title far more important than ‘president’).

The thing is, Julio, you say you want clean sport; you say you are zero-tolerant; you say dopers should be punished. And it may well be that you are sincere. And yet the record paints a different picture.

Yuliya Efimova by Patrick B. Kraemer

Sun Yang – by Patrick B. Kraemer

Outfoxed by the extension of Russia’s masquerade from the mousehole in the lab wall to the court room of arbitration, Maglione presides, yet again, over another fine mess: when Yuliya Efimova* and entourage take their case before the CAS, what do you think is going to happen, Maglione, to the FINA grand plan of nodding to the IOC’s unwillingness to impose a blanket ban that would have got the job done? What do you think might be said about cutting out the Russians who have had a positive test to their name in the past while leaving your star turn, China’s Sun Yang*, FINA world titles man of the meet, Korea’s Park Tae-hwan, and others with an asterisk to their names (NB: you get three, Julio, because you’re a very important person) in the Olympic pool?

Three ways of looking at it: Maglione and Co at FINA are either (feel free to tick the box you perceive as most appropriate):

deliberately divisive lucky gamblers or, complete nincompoops

CAS will decide. Now, it could well be that the sports court, having sided with the IAAF to keep Russian track and field athletes out of Rio because the rules say that it can, may find a way of making exceptions of Russians who have tested positive even though Justin Gatlin**, with a big thumbs up from USOC, will be there making a sham of the track and field events.

It may be that the CAS finds that in response to exceptional circumstances, all who have previously found wanting under the WADA Code will be locked out of Rio. Now that would be a great day for the Olympic Movement.

I’m not a betting man, Julio, but if I had to place a wager, I’d say that CAS will struggle to forge either of the two suggestions above out of the cauldron of chaos the IOC placed on the stove the moment it abdicated its responsibility to FINA and its peers in other sports and failed to say to Russia:

You have been involved in systematic doping and we cannot and will not tolerate that – come back in 2020 and show us that you’ve placed your bad habits and abuse of minors on the compost of bad practice that has no part in the Olympics of elite world sport in 2016.

Vladimir Salnikov

Is that not what you, Maglione, and FINA ought to be saying, too? Have you, Maglione, asked Vladimir Salnikov, fellow Bureau member and head of the Russian Swimming Federation, about those two EPO positives that never got reported – in contravention of the WADA Code.

I only ask because if WADA isn’t the body to look into such things, then it must be you. So, where are you with it?

Of course, it may be that it will take you some time to get to it, given that the cue of unresolved issues at FINA dates back to the days of the German Democratic Republic and State Plan 14:25.

Have you got that silver pin back yet, Julio? You know the one, the services to swimming award the Bureau you served gave to Lothar Kipke for services

You honoured the GDR beyond Kipke, of course.  You’ll remember at least some of these:

The FINA Eminence Prize

Kornelia Ender (GDR) – 1975 … that was the year she won two solo golds, a solo silver and two relays golds at the world championships, while Shirley Babashoff (USA) won two solo golds, a solo silver, a solo bronze and two silvers in relays behind the GDR and State Plan 14:25.

Stasi (secret police) documents emerged in the 1990s naming scores of Olympic champions and world record holders had been doped

Go down a peg and we have …

The FINA Prize:

Kristin Otto (GDR) – 1988, six golds at the Seoul 1988 Olympic Games.  On the image to the right, Julio, you’ll spot the ‘positiv’ anabolic steroid test result she returned in-house at the IOC-accredited Kreischa laboratory, that a process not to reveal the cheating inherent in State Plan 14:25 but to hide it from the world.

Where were you, Julio, when the evidence flowed like a river of blood all through the 1990s and culminated in the criminal conviction of coaches and doctors and officials for abuse of minors?

What did you do, Julio? I ask because you were right there at the top table throughout all those years. Here’s a reminder in case you’re forgotten:

1984: voted on to the FINA Bureau 1988: promoted to Vice-President 1992 (beyond the first very clear evidence that State Plan 14:25 fuelled the GDR success from 1973 to 1989): promoted to Honorary Treasurer.

Yuan Yuan under arrest, 1998, by Craig Lord at Perth Airport

And, then, all through the years of the China doping crisis, your journey as a career politician earning a vast wage in per diems even though your every expense is covered beyond the need for any per diem … did you, Julio, ask whatever happened to Yuan Yuan and her generation? Did you care to know if they are of good health, Julio? What can you tell the world about the health of the GDR girls long since women and the Chinese girls long since women and their offspring and the doctors who treat them? Is there anything you’d like to say to them, Julio – if so, do feel free to pen your thoughts and we promise to publish every last word you write.

1996, 2000, 2005-2009: returned to the treasurer’s position which you held for 17 years …

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