World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) v. International Boxing Association (IBA), Rohan Polanco Emiliano

At a glance

Parties

World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) v. International Boxing Association (IBA) and Rohan Polanco Emiliano (Dominican Republic)

Case no.

CAS 2021/A/8529

Forum and rules

Court of Arbitration for Sport, Appeals Arbitration Division; CAS Code of Sports-related Arbitration

Treaty

None. The applicable rules were the IBA Anti-Doping Rules 2020 and 2021, ISTI 2020, ISTI 2021 and ISRM 2021

Tribunal

James Drake KC (President), Michael Beloff KC, Jan Paulsson

Sector

Boxing; anti-doping (whereabouts failures)

Outcome

Appeal upheld (16 May 2023). The IBA decision was set aside. The Athlete was found to have committed an Article 2.4 anti-doping rule violation (three whereabouts failures in 12 months).

Amount

No money claim. Sanction: 20 months' ineligibility from the date of the Award, and disqualification of results from 1 April 2021 to 11 July 2021.

The dispute

Rohan Polanco Emiliano, a boxer from the Dominican Republic, was included in the IBA's Registered Testing Pool on 30 January 2020 ahead of the Tokyo Games. The International Testing Agency (ITA), acting for the IBA, recorded three whereabouts filing failures against him: a late Q4 2020 filing, a failure to update his whereabouts that led to an unsuccessful test on 2 December 2020, and an incomplete Q2 2021 filing. It charged him under Article 2.4 of the IBA Anti-Doping Rules. In its Operative Decision of 14 July 2021 and its Reasoned Decision of 19 November 2021, the IBA then held that the first failure should not have been recorded, because of the way ADAMS handles the "submit" step, and it dropped the charge. WADA appealed and sought a period of ineligibility of one to two years. The IBA defended only its position on the first failure. The Athlete argued that he had never been "duly notified", because all notices were in English, which he does not understand, and that he was not negligent.

Key holdings

1. The Athlete's Answer was admitted although he emailed it and never filed it by courier or e-filing as Article R31 of the CAS Code requires. No rule takes away a respondent's right to defend itself because its Answer is late, and admitting it served justice and fairness. ¶¶ 155–159
2. The Athlete admitted signing the acknowledgement form but did not appear at the hearing and called no corroborating witness. The Panel therefore gave little weight to his written statement and accepted the documents as meaning what they say. ¶¶ 181–185
3. "Duly notified" under Article I.3.6(a) of ISTI 2020 means only that the federation sent the notice required by Article I.2.1. The federation has no duty to find out what language the athlete speaks, and it may use English. The Athlete was duly notified for all three failures. ¶¶ 189–192, 221
4. First filing failure established. The Athlete had not provided complete Q4 2020 information by 30 September 2020: he completed and submitted it only on 2 October 2020. He did not rebut the presumption of negligence, given the reminders he received and his access to a computer on 28 September and 1 October. ¶¶ 193–200
5. Second and third filing failures established. COVID may explain why the Athlete was absent on 2 December 2020, but not why he failed to update his whereabouts. For Q2 2021, the information sent piecemeal by email was incomplete (it had no 60-minute slots) and was not complete until late April 2021. The Panel left open whether there is a positive duty to file through ADAMS. ¶¶ 207–225
6. Sanction. The Panel assessed fault across all three failures, using a 12–24 month scale with 'high', 'medium' and 'low' bands. Fault for the first failure was light, but fault for the second and third was serious. The overall fault fell in the 'high' bracket (20–24 months), and the Panel imposed the low end of that range: 20 months from the date of the Award, with credit for any provisional suspension served. ¶¶ 231–236
7. All results from 1 April 2021 to 11 July 2021 are disqualified under Article 10.10 of the IBA ADR. Results after the provisional suspension was lifted on 14 July 2021 are not affected. ¶¶ 237–241; operative part ¶ 5

Procedural history

1. 30 January 2020The Athlete was included in the IBA Registered Testing Pool. He signed the acknowledgement form on 20 February 2020.
2. 11 July 2021The ITA issued a Notice of Charge under Article 2.4 of the IBA ADR and provisionally suspended the Athlete.
3. 14 July 2021IBA Operative Decision: the first filing failure should not have been recorded, and the provisional suspension was lifted.
4. 19 November 2021IBA Reasoned Decision: no anti-doping rule violation would be brought forward.
5. 27 December 2021WADA filed its Statement of Appeal with CAS.
6. 16 March 2022The Panel was constituted: James Drake KC (President), Michael Beloff KC and Jan Paulsson.
7. 22 March 2022The Panel admitted the Athlete's late-filed Answer to the record.
8. 14 July 2022Remote hearing held. The Athlete, whose pro bono counsel had withdrawn on 12 July 2022, did not appear.
9. 16 May 2023Award: appeal upheld, and the Athlete was sanctioned with 20 months' ineligibility.

Tribunal, counsel and experts

Decided by

• James Drake President, CAS Panel — appointed by the institution
• Michael J. Beloff Co-arbitrator, CAS Panel — appointed by the claimant
• Jan Paulsson Co-arbitrator, CAS Panel — appointed by the respondent

For the claimant

WADA (in-house) · Nicolas Zbinden · Adam Taylor

For the respondent

IBA (in-house) · Tyr LLP

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Keywords

• whereabouts failures
• filing failure
• Article 2.4
• Registered Testing Pool
• ADAMS
• duly notified
• language of notification
• presumption of negligence
• degree of fault
• period of ineligibility
• disqualification of results
• late filing of Answer
• Article R31 CAS Code
• ISTI 2020
• ISRM 2021
• International Testing Agency
• boxing
• Tokyo Olympic Games

Summary generated with AI from the published documents — refer to the award for the authoritative text.