News broke on July 14 that five Jamaican athletes had failed drug tests at the national championships in June, setting off one of the biggest drug scandals ever faced by Jamaican athletes and authorities. In addition to [Smikle], global stars, former 100-metre world record holder Asafa Powell and Olympic 100-metre silver medalist She rone Simpson, as well as Allison Randall and 19-year-old Damar Robinson also failed drug tests. The news broke one month after it was announced that Veronica Campbell Brown, another global star and two-time Olympic 200-metre champion, had failed a drug test after competing at the Jamaica International Invitational in May.
[Simpson]'s case will be heard on January 7 and 8 while [Powell]'s will come up a week later on January 14 and 15. Powell was not happy about the January hearing dates but the challenge faced by the panel is that [Robinson] will be representing JADCo in the cases of Allison Randall, Demar Robinson and Través Smikle which are set to be concluded by December 17 this year. Both athletes were present at the preliminary hearing held at the Jamaica Conference Centre in Kingston.
Cases brought by the Jamaica AntiDoping Commission (JADCo) Disciplinary Panel against track athletes [Dominique Blake] Blake and Ricardo Cunningham have been adjourned until December 3-5 and November 1, respectively, because of the absence of adequate documentation and witnesses. Blake and Dixon were clearly not in favour of an adjournment at the outset, with Dixon pointing out·' "My client is here now, she does not reside in Jamaica and we are here now and believe we can present a good rebuttal. We are prepared to present a case to you." Blake in turn is to file with the JADCo Secretariat a comprehensive brief no later than November 7, 2012.
"The suggestion that [Veronica Campbell-Brown] was cleared on some technicality is simply not true. She was cleared because no anti-doping violation was proven and the reason none was proven was because she didn't do anything wrong, period, end of story," said attorney Howard Jacobs during a press conference yesterday at The Jamaica Pegasus. "It's not a technicality, it's a fundamental point," [Jacob] noted. "The question remained, what happened to the third sample?" "My inability to defend my 200m title was a huge loss. In fact, just being unable to compete was financially and emotionally devastating. This ordeal cost me in excess of 90 per cent of my possible earnings. The ripple effect affected my charities, most notably my foundation and my contribution towards my alma mater and others," said Campbell-Brown. "I now have a renewed appreciation for my talent and relationships within the sport that are important to me."
