Topic: News: Sevdalin Marinov Busted For Doping Trafficking

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Weightlifting Coach Gets Life Ban

Australian weightlifting coach Sevdalin Marinov has received a life ban from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) for a second doping offence.

Marinov was sanctioned for possession of prohibited substances including testosterone and anabolic steroids, the Australian Sports Anti Doping Authority (ASADA) said in a statement.

Marinov, a three-time world champion, Olympic and Commonwealth gold medallist, had previously tested positive to steroids in Bulgaria in 1995 before coming to Australia where he was employed as the head coach of Victorian Weightlifting and the national junior coach.

ASADA Chairman Richard Ings said Marinov was the third person to be sanctioned as a result of ASADA's new powers of investigation and the first non-analytical case to be successfully brought against a coach.

Ings said the testosterone and anabolic steroids were discovered in November 2003, after Victoria Police executed a search warrant at a premises where Marinov had been residing.

During the search, three boxes of prohibited substances; Deca-Durabol, Sustanon and Ilium Stanabolic were found in Marinov's bedroom, Ings said.

ASADA alleged at the CAS hearing that Marinov had, under the anti-doping policy in force at the time, committed a doping violation of trafficking by possession.

"This CAS decision is a strong endorsement of ASADA's new investigative capability and sends a powerful message that there is no room in Australian sport for those athletes or their support persons who use or traffic in doping substances," Ings said.

Australian lifters have had a string of positive drug results in recent years with Alex Karapetyan, Sergo Chakhoyan and female lifters Corran Hocking, Jenna Myers and Camilla Fogagnolo testing positive to the stimulant benzylpiperazine (BZP).

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Champ's win hits sport drug sleuths

[attachimg=1]
A star is reborn: Sevi Marinov the world-beater in his weightlifting days in 1994.
A drug ban has just been overturned, clearing the way for a possible return to coaching.
Photo: Ray Kennedy

AN AUSTRALIAN weightlifting coach and former three-times world champion has had his life ban for drug offences overturned, dealing a blow to Australia's anti-doping watchdog as it is asked to take on a bigger role in the Federal Government's crusade against drugs in sport.

Bulgarian-born Sevdalin "Sevi" Marinov, once dubbed the "pocket Hercules" because of his 152-centimetre stature, had been found guilty in June of possessing banned steroids and testosterone in a case prosecuted by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority.

ASADA had taken the matter to the international Court of Arbitration for Sport, the first time a "non-analytical" case — for being in possession of drugs rather than having used them — had been brought successfully against a coach in Australia.

But three court arbitrators sitting in Melbourne threw out the ban on appeal this week, paving the way for Marinov, 38, to return to coaching.

Marinov, who is in Bulgaria, said he was delighted, but feared his Australian career was over.

He said he would seek to be reinstated as Australian junior coach but was not sure whether he would be taken back "because my reputation and my image has been ruined by ASADA".

The Australian Weightlifting Federation said Marinov would be welcome to apply for any coaching jobs, though there were no current vacancies. An ASADA spokesman said the agency preferred not to comment on the hearing's outcome.

Marinov's appeal would never have proceeded except for the backing of a group of Melbourne lawyers, led by John McMullan and barrister Paul Hayes, who believed "justice demanded it".

Another supporter, business consultant Tony Cutcliffe, is fiercely critical of the government agency's legal processes, saying it is more interested in "scalps" than justice.

Athletes without access to substantial financial resources would find it almost impossible to defend themselves against an ASADA charge, he said.

ASADA was created last year as a vanguard in the Government's attack on drugs in sport. It investigates and prosecutes breaches of an anti-doping code consistent with that of the international body the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Last week, the Government invited ASADA to extend its involvement in the drug fight by providing an audit of how major sports test for illicit or so-called "recreational" drugs, and to consider whether it could be directly involved in helping sports develop new testing rules.

Marinov's victory, however, is a blow in a case that ASADA had trumpeted as a key win.

The case related to a four-year-old drug bust involving another weightlifter, Olympic hopeful Keith Murphy. Marinov, whose marriage to the daughter of weightlifting official Sam Coffa had broken down, had been staying in Murphy's home at Warrandyte, when Murphy was found in possession of almost 15 kilograms of the anabolic steroid stanozolol.

A subsequent raid on Murphy's house uncovered powder, labels, vials and pill presses used in the production and sale of steroids, as well as three boxes of prohibited substances, including testosterone on the top shelf of a wardrobe in a bedroom that had been used by Marinov.

At the time of the raid, Marinov was in Canada with the Australian team competing in the world championships.

Murphy pleaded guilty to trafficking and possession of the substances found at the house and received a suspended two-year jail sentence. However, Marinov was never charged, and has always maintained that he was a victim of circumstance. He said he was unaware of Murphy's drug activities, and said he could not reach the top shelf.

Last year, the newly created ASADA decided to re-examine the 2003 incident as part of its review of Australian weightlifting after a string of positive results were recorded at the Commonwealth Games.

Unfortunately for Marinov, he also had form. A world champion in the 52-kilogram class between 1985 and 1987 and a gold medal winner at the Seoul Olympics, Marinov migrated to Australia in 1991 and won gold for his adopted country in the 1994 Commonwealth Games. But three years later he tested positive to steroids and was banned from competition for two years.

Marinov's supporters said that incident was a "wake-up call" and that the diminutive lifter had led an exemplary life since. He had been Australia's junior coach for three years until 2006, for which he was paid less than $30,000 a year.

Because of the timing of Marinov's alleged offence, he was charged under the old 2002 anti-doping code, which categorised the charge as one of trafficking. The original court hearing found him guilty despite the arbitrator agreeing that there was no evidence that Marinov "used the substances found on the shelf in his bedroom or that he was supplying, distributing, offering, selling, exchanging or brokering the prohibited substances".

He concluded, however, that Marinov must have known the drugs were there and could have removed them, and therefore committed a doping offence of "trafficking by possession".

Marinov's appeal proceeded only because his legal team stumped up the required $8000 arbitration fee, and carried his overall legal costs, estimated at more than $140,000.

"It was a pretty thin evidentiary connection between Sevi Marinov and the drugs that (ASADA) were pointing to," said Marinov's lawyer, Mr McMullan. "Not nil. I'm not trying to criticise ASADA for being ASADA, but you'd have to say that many people would have thought the evidence pretty thin to charge him."

Mr McMullan said the problems were twofold: that the access to justice under ASADA's processes required the payment of substantial money and, because names of accused seemed inevitably to become public, reputations could be easily trashed.

"It's a real destruction of a person's life. You wouldn't want to be (prosecuting) without a pretty solid basis, and you'd have to say in this case the basis wasn't perfect."

Mr Cutcliffe, who runs the Eureka Project and is involved in supporting local indigenous initiatives, said ASADA's tactics amounted to bullying. The Marinov case "inspires no confidence in them or their processes, or even their results".

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

He said he was unaware of Murphy's drug activities, and said he could not reach the top shelf.

I think thats the best legal defense quote I have ever heard in my life.   

[Pete Church]

Cracked me up!