Viktor Troicki has been banned 18 months by the International Tennis Federation for skipping a blood test this spring in Monte-Carlo. Troicki claims he was informed by a doctor that he would be allowed to skip the test because he was feeling ill on that particular day.
“The doctor in charge of the testing told me that I looked very pale and ill, and that I could skip the test if I wrote an explanation letter to ITF about it,” the Serb explained. “She dictated the letter to me and let me go without giving blood. She was very helpful and understanding…. Now I am being charged for refusing to undergo a blood test without justification. This is a real nightmare.
“I am 100 percent sure that the court of arbitration in Lausanne will consider my good faith and my total innocence,” Troicki continued, referring to his upcoming appeal. “But now, this enormous sanction makes me speechless. It feels like the world that I help building day by day has let me down. It is the worst feeling you can imagine.”
Ed: The potential for misunderstanding due to language issues was one of the first questions I had. It was actually addressed in a roundabout way. Troicki’s own attorneys brought up the issue of the doctor’s assistant not being fluent in English and therefore could not be a credible witness to the events that took place. Therefore, we know that they communicated in English. The letter that Troicki wrote was in English and at no time did Troicki’s attorneys ever assert that the “misunderstanding” may have been due to either the doctor’s or Viktor’s command, or lack thereof, of the English language. The only mention of language is on page 13, 8.6.2 subparagraph iv.
The reason I asked is I seem to recall in the early statements by Troicki that the doctor said ‘it should be alright if he wrote a letter’. This became she told him ‘it will be alright’ in his later testimonies. If the former were the case then it is easy to see why he claimed she was letting him off the hook. The use of the conditional tense is not understood by many people even in their own language.
Thank you, Simon Briggs, for telling it like it is:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/10453488/Novak-Djokovics-comments-in-wake-of-Viktor-Troicki-ban-prove-that-the-tennis-family-is-too-dysfunctional.html
“But let us turn to tennis, where world No 2 Novak Djokovic recently accused a doping control officer of being “negligent and unprofessional”, and no one in authority even blinked.
What a perfect illustration of the sport’s lack of leadership.
In football or cricket, dissent is an offence, even if it happens in the heat of battle. Steve Bruce and Jose Mourinho are among the managers fined by the Football Association in the past month alone.
Yet at last week’s end-of-season showcase at the O2 Arena, Djokovic came into the interview room with what was effectively a prepared statement, and did all he could to undermine the credibility of Dr Elena Gorodilova, a woman who has spent 15 years in her post. If tennis had a hint of gumption, he would have faced disciplinary action. “