Richard Ings joins backflippers as darkest day in Australian sport becomes a giant grey area
Date
June 2, 2014 - 10:00PM
Andrew Webster
Chief Sports Writer, The Sydney Morning Herald
There are backflips and then there are triple-twisting quadruple backflips. The gold medal goes to Richard Ings, former ASADA boss and present-day rent-a-quote on anything drugs related.
You'll remember Ings shouted to the heavens on February 7 last year that the media conference revealing the apparent rampant use of prohibited performance-enhancing substances known as peptides was the "blackest day in Australian sport".
Not now. Not for Richard Ings. The day isn't so much black as grey.
"Fifteen months on we're still waiting," Ings told Ben Fordham on 2GB last Friday afternoon.
Thanks, scoop.
"The reason I said that at the time was that it was a press conference filled with a lot of serious accusations across the stretches of Australian sport," he continued. "The accusations were the most profound and the most serious I have heard in my long involvement in sport in Australia. And that was my motivation, [because it came] from such elite figures and politicians in Australian sport."
Serious accusations? Well, if they come from the mouths of desperate politicians from a desperate Labor party facing election annihilation, yes, then they must be real and serious.
Smelling blood in the water, Fordham went in for the kill.
He accused then Home Affairs and Justice Minister Jason Clare of doing his best impersonation of the bogeyman that dark day in February last year.
Fordham reminded everyone of his own line from that afternoon on 2GB; that the alleged doomsday predications were nothing more than a "beat-up".
Then he suggested to Ings that February 7 wasn't the blackest day, rather, it was the day sport had been politicised like never before.
"That's right," oozed Ings. "That's my view some 15 months on. We now have to look at the outcomes. We don't know the politics behind the scenes. But we can look at the outcomes. Without a single charge. I'm of the view, and it's a view now shared by many, it was the day ASADA was usurped by a political process."
And here come the scores ... Yes, they're all 10s!
Ings isn't the only one doing the backflipping.
This isn't about who is right or wrong. Nor is it about which commentator got it right and who didn't. It's about a fair and just process in the face of sport's greatest accusation and slur – that people took illegal substances to gain an advantage, or at least knowingly allowed it to happen.
The AFL and the NRL have held their own investigations and managed the "outcomes" that Ings speaks of on the basis of "duty of care" and "negligence".
Indeed, it is very clear that some serious breaches of trust – not least at Essendon – have occured, which brought down their coach James Hird.
But when it comes to rugby league, it is becoming apparent, with every passing day or month, that two individuals have been thrown under the bus. And it's becoming clearer that ASADA and the NRL don't entirely care.
They are former Panthers winger Sandor Earl and former Sharks strength and conditioning coach Trent Elkin.
Earl was the first and only player to come forward and tell ASADA what he knows.
Before that, Elkin came forward within a day of the February 7 press conference, wanting to tell the NRL and ASADA investigators what he knew.
As it stands, Earl is killing time in Phuket, drinking smoothies while awaiting a final verdict on the length of his suspension.
At least Earl will return to the field at some stage. Elkin's future in footy is bleak at best.
He has maintained his silence while others at his former club have shamelessly been prepared to push him out into the firing line, while maintaining their own innocence.
Sharks coach Shane Flanagan will have served his suspension in a matter of months, giving him enough time to finish off renos on his $2.3 million house in the Shire before taking up his new three-year deal at the club he is supposedly not coaching.
Elkin has still not faced a hearing into his appeal for the two-year ban he received late last year from the NRL. This despite being the first person to speak to ASADA investigators.
ASADA, meanwhile, continues to leak like a sieve, with estimations floating around about how many players will be served with show cause letters and infraction notices.
The numbers – ranging from 31 to four to three to the next number coming up on Powerball – have changed as much as the day when ASADA will actually strike.
It was going to be November. Then before Christmas. Then the end of January. Then the end of April. The truth is ASADA doesn't know.
There is no doubt that the dawning of the not-so-blackest day in Australian sport has brought about necessary change at football clubs.
Sports scientists such as Stephen Dank are no longer being given the keys to the Ferrari. Or, in the case of the Sharks, the Datto 180B.
It has taken this episode to ensure strict supplement legislation, and integrity units have been put in place in all codes to preserve the sanctity of sport.
Those involved in the February 7 press conference – from Jason Clare, to Sports Minister Kate Lundy, to Australian Crime Commission boss John Lawler, to ASADA chief executive Aurora Andruska – no longer hold their positions.
Regrettably, the witch hunt they started continues, with no end in sight.
