If you are a reader of Steroid Nation you will note comments by Ferren Christou. Today Ferren pens an interview in The Daily Peloton with the high profile attorney for the US Anti-Doping Agency, Travis Tygart. The piece is a comprehensive interview. Here are excerpts.
By Ferren Christou
Travis Tygart is the Senior Managing Director and General Counsel for the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). USADA is well known to professional cycling fans for it's past and current prosecution of high profile doping cases against Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis...
Ferren Christou: Travis what's your background in sporting law? How did you get involved in the anti-doping movement? Is this an issue that you have been very interested in or passionate about for some time? Also what does your job entail?
Mr. Travis Tygart: Participation in sports as a player and coach taught me to value the ethics of athletic competition including fair play, hard work, team work and playing by the rules. As a result, I have been passionate about these values for a long time.
These principles are the reasons that I decided to leave teaching and coaching and attend law school. I wanted to do my part to ensure fairness, justice and uphold the rule of law. These sound like abstract concepts, but in the legal world these are real concepts that guide our decisions on a daily basis. When I represented criminal defendants, I saw first hand the impact that friends, peer pressure, money and unfortunate circumstances can have on an individual’s decisions and how important the application of these fundamental principles are to cases that impact people’s lives...
Ferren: Some people feel that the ADAs are bureaucracies that make their living by prosecuting doping infractions. That this makes the ADAs more interested in winning cases than finding the truth. Does this compromise objectivity?
Travis: I find that those individuals who claim anti-doping agencies (“ADAs”) are more interested in winning cases that finding the truth, are usually either defense attorneys who have a profit motive to make such claims or reporters looking to create a story and sell newspapers. Those claims are simply detached from reality. People with a true understanding of what USADA does know better.
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