Sports world’s justice system often unfair to the accused

As hard as the presumption of guilt can be to overcome in the world’s court systems, it apparently is even harder in the international anti-doping bureaucracy headed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, where even high-profile athletes like Lance Armstrong don’t stand a chance.

As Sally Jenkins of The Washington Post notes:

“Anyone who thinks an athlete has a fair shot in front of CAS should review the Alberto Contador case. Contador was found to have a minuscule, insignificant amount of clenbuterol in his urine during the 2010 Tour de France. After hearing 4,000 pages of testimony and debate, CAS acknowledged that the substance was too small to have been performance-enhancing and that its ingestion was almost certainly unintentional.

Therefore he was guilty. He received a two-year ban.”

Even worse, Jenkins said, one year of that ban was exacted because the prime minister of Spain dared to defend Contador’s innocence. You can read Jenkins’ full commentary here.