[Closed] IAAF on BBC 2 right now

Thought Pam was going to cry as they told her she ruined the event for the whole stadium

It's unedifying. A producer should have stopped them half way through as they just kept asking the same question

Turned over - may not have been communicated well, but they've tried to protect athletes from spreading norovirus.

That was hugely biased reporting, nothing impartial about that. Why did they keep on going, and going?

I hope they issue an apology direct to Pam.

Really was playground ganging up. She did amazingly well to deal with it as she did. A novo virus outbreak and someone presenting with the symptoms and they question why he couldn't run - then Paula Radcliffe wittering on about taking bloods. Bonkers.

Agree, that was wrong of BBC. I also thought it was wrong of the Botswanan team to go up to the media like that. Somewhat of a witch-hunt. With regard to lack of communication, I'm not sure how far the IAAF need to inform the media of an athletes confidential medical history?

Really poor from the BBC. Nothing learned from that remorseless questioning

I thought the lady did well, very composed and dignified. These people are damned if they do, damned if they don't.

What was all that cr@p about giving the athlete a blood test so that it'll be easier for him to get over. (I suspect Radcliffe isn't the sharpest tool in the box!)

Jeez, that should have been stopped. Neutral, impartial?

Paula was a bit off the wall in relation to controlling naturally high levels testosterone in female athletes last night too.

then Paula Radcliffe wittering on about taking bloods.

😯

it was all very Newsnight. the whole 10-10:30 slot in the athletics has just been filler - they finally get something to talk about and all the ex-athletes (and Gabby Logan lol) gang up on poor Pam who I thought did well not to tell them all to f-off. the IAAF really threw her under the bus.

gang up on poor Pam who I thought did well not to tell them all to f-off.

Yep, I thought she did really well to keep her composure and not throw the 'what would you do in the same situation, being responsible for public health?' question back at them.

Even if the athlete had taken part surely he would not have done himself justice being ill, so what was the point? The pundits really didn't get the public health bit did they. Pam several times had to diplomatically say she believed her doctor not title-tattle.

It's all very well having past stars as pundits but it doesn't mean they are any good, Michael Johnson sometimes excepted.

I was disappointed with Johnson - he's an intelligent man who normally provides an honest but balanced view. Not tonight though.

what happened here? summarise please, missed it?

Athlete (potential medalist in mens 400m) was ill. Symptoms suggest noro-virus which is doing the rounds

IAAF prevented him from competing - on grounds of public health (noro-virus contagious via various means)

Athlete turns up at stadium - refused access as pass revoked.

BBC pundits slaughter (poised and dignified) IAAF representative for preventing star from competing.

ta!

That was ****ing ridiculous. It's only a dose of the shits not the Black Death. Hands up anyone who would have isolated themselves rather than take part in a career-defining moment.

For the record, the iaaf statement was incompetent and wrong. Norovirus is not notifiable and there is no mandatory 48h quarantine in England. Probably what happened is that some iaaf functionary misinterpreted what the phe advice actually meant. But hey it was just some random african nobody who got ****ed so who cares.

Sounds like the IAAF care...anyone who is unwell is going to get worse by stressing their body. At the level these athletes are at, that stress will be far higher, so, yes...IAAF cares (although sounds like they went with public safety).

rather than take part in a career-defining moment.

Shitting yourself live on tv? I guess Paula Radcliffe is an expert in this area...

He clearly was not unwell to any significant degree.

And for that matter he's got his own medical team to look after his own welfare.

He clearly was unwell enough not to take part.

It's shocking the coverage. the studio discussions are bizarre. DidT see this but sounds very similar to the casta semenya discussion which was just the same hackneyed tripe repeated for half an hour. Johnson rose above that one more.

...Sorry to interrupt we need to cut away as we've found an athlete crying to film.

BBC was shocking, truly shocking.
It feels very tabloid at the moment, from the American shot putter who they had on to seemingly attack the judges, to then letting the Botswanan team on to rant, to then attacking the IAAF representative. Very, very poor work I thought.

Why drac? He seemed fine on tv and according to his doctor. No-one has claimed that he was unfit in any way at the time of the race.

Can I the BBC get a refund on the salary paid? Competitors and built to compete by design especially if there is a glimmer of hope for a win at a significant championship.

Why drac? He seemed fine on tv and according to his doctor. No-one has claimed that he was unfit in any way at the time of the race.

He was diagnosed with the Norovirus as were others all were put into quarantine and stopped from competing for 48 hours. He was the only one who ignored this and tried to enter the event anyway. It's not a case of how he looked on TV or what his Dr said it's that the IAFF medical advisors said he can't compete as he was risk of infection.

Plenty of other athletes/teams have gone along with the quarantine requirements. Hysterical reporting by the BBC.

Did seem to be a discrepancy between what the athlete was alleged to have said when he presented with symptoms.

So which is it drac? You just said he was not well enough to take part only to immediately change your tune. The phe advice may be best practice but has no legal force and nor should it. The guy was only going to run in his own lane, it's not like he was working in a hospital or nursing home. The low and minor risks could easily have been mitigated with some extra disinfectant if anyone had thought it necessary. Banning him from taking part was a huge and unsupportable over-reaction to a minor issue.

Drac, why? I didn't see the iaaf interview but I did see the one with the Botswanan medical rep.

The evidence in support of "norovirus" is that he is staying in the same hotel as people who have gastroenteritis (but not a laboratory confirmed norovirus?) AND he was sick ONCE when he got off a bus. The iaaf recorded the time of the sickness wrong, which doesn't lend much credibility to their story.

The evidence against it being norovirus - all other obs. are normal, he has no other symptoms, he has not been sick again. Nobody who genuinely has nororvirus will be fit enough to jog 400m never mind attempt a medal.

There is a dispute whether the botswanians were told to quarantine him for 48hrs , but certainly if they were the message was not clearly communicated and he has been free to mingle with other officials and competitors at the hotel, and neither the IAAF nor PHE have done anything to "police" that - so he could have exposed others who were then coming into the stadium anyway.

That said, the botswanan interview was a bit of a nonsense too, and clearly the presenters (or their producer?) was loving a bit of scandal without having both sides.

So which is it drac? You just said he was not well enough to take part only to immediately change your tune.

Oh FFS!

I can't be arsed. The IAFF made the right decision despite your diagnosis by seeing him on TV.

The evidence against it being norovirus - all other obs. are normal, he has no other symptoms, he has not been sick again. Nobody who genuinely has nororvirus will be fit enough to jog 400m never mind attempt a medal.

Due to the nature of my job I've had it many times over th years, ranging from not being able to get out of bed to functioning as normal except for puking every now and then. It doesn't necessarily make you bed ridden.

And did it not cross your mind that a response appropriate to a healthcare worker in their daily life might not be entirely appropriate for an athlete faced with a once in a lifetime opportunity?

The captain - IF it is norovirus, or indeed even very likely to be norovirus then I don't think the response is disproportionate, in fact I would say it was too little - protecting the stadium is useless if you have exposed others at the hotel who then are undiagnosed and walk in. The dispute seems to centre on whether the IAAF had any clinical basis to make a diagnosis. Now I've only seen the botswanan version of that so can't say if they were right.

Due to the nature of my job I've had it many times over th years, ranging from not being able to get out of bed to functioning as normal except for puking every now and then. It doesn't necessarily make you bed ridden.

The botswanan argument seems to be he may just have been travel sick, nervous, etc and wrongly labelled. They might be right. However, the iaaf have probably just ensured that anyone in the future with symptoms that might be an infectious disease keeps quiet...

Denise Lewis is awful, have you contacted the other federations to see if they are happy for him to run??? FFS

Radcliffe also, what was that bloods question about and why did she persist?

All in all I dont think it was overly aggressive the Doctor handled it well and the panel looked like amateurs.

Well it doesn't seem that deadly as it seems that it's not got beyond a bunch of athletes all staying at the same place despite the huge number of people going in and out of the hotel and stadium. Yes, the huge over-reaction pretty much guarantees that athletes will not be open about such things in the future, to the detriment of all.

Easy with hindsight Captain

Were they worried he was going to stop for a dump halfway round, Radcliffe could have given him some pointers.

It intensely annoyed me the whole thing. The BBC is a joke frankly and that should never have been allowed to happen.

The Captain,

How do you know it has not spread further? Do you think the PHE reporting systems are good enough to know any information like that in real time? Do you think everyone who gets sick calls the doctor (and of course with an incubation period and the lead time to see a doctor if they do they might be sick but undiagnosed at this point).

With healthy athletes they will almost certainly all make a full recovery quite quickly. The issue is that you can't stop vulnerable people people getting sick, good hygiene helps but if someone old or immune compromised gets infected norovirus can indirectly lead to life threatening issues. I don't particularly want people suffering just so that someone can run around in circles for less than a minute, even if he has spent years building up to it. Even the botswanans weren't suggesting that if he is actually infected / infectious that he should be allowed in.

[whataboutery] I bet that wouldn't have happened to a British or US athlete [/whataboutery]

I think the original point of the decision has become a bit lost with this in-fighting.

1 - There was an outbreak of suspected novovirus amongst the athletes
2 - All affected teams/athletes complied with the wishes of the IAAF and the advice of Public Health England and went into quarantine
3 - Isaac Makwala presented with the same symptoms as the other athletes (being sick over an 18 hour period according to some reports despite his team later claiming he was only sick once) – bear in mind he went to the doctors himself so he was clearly concerned about his own health
4 - The option to test him to confirm the diagnosis wasn't an option as it takes 36 to 48 hours to get results from the test by which time he could have spread it around and made more people sick if he wasn't immediately preventatively quarantined in the same way as other athletes were
5 - Isaac Makwala was subsequently withdrawn and had his pass revoked yet he still tried to get access to the stadium to compete
6 - The decision made to withdraw him was not because he was too unwell to compete, but to try to contain the outbreak

whataboutery] I bet that wouldn't have happened to a British or US athlete [/whataboutery]

What would a whataboutery font look like? I'm thinking maybe tall and thin with a very high median and always in caps?

The IAAF deserve the flak and more, the team were right to give her a hard time. Ridiculous amounts of jobsworthery going on and an absence of common sense.

Perhaps the IAAF deserve some flak for their handling of the overall situation but she did not deserve any – all she did was report her findings (based on advice she was given by her team of doctors on the ground) to them in conjunction with advice from Public Health England and it was IAAF that made the decision.

Why so soft? A head of department has thicker skin than to go home crying about tough questions.

Why so soft? A head of department has thicker skin than to go home crying about tough questions.

I missed this bit, but did see the preceding 'interviews' with the team director and 'medic' (who turned out to be a physio). All very amateurish from the pundits, especially Radcliffe. It was like a drunken discussion in a pub, a load of misinformed nonsense with no one actually listening to the questions previously asked or the answers given, with a healthy dos of speculation thrown in for good measure.

The previous night's 'discussion' about Semenya was similar; Radcliffe going on about how the rules should be 'fair for the majority', mainly meaning that Semenya shouldn't be allowed to run because the other poor athletes can't beat her.

It was like a drunken discussion in a pub, a load of misinformed nonsense with no one actually listening to the questions previously asked or the answers given, with a healthy dos of speculation thrown in for good measure.

Disgraceful, I'm just glad that never happens on here.

Of course I saw it. I've competed at a national level and been involved and interested in athletics for 25 years. The IAAF woman came across like an oblivious jobsworth. And I refer you to my previous comments above.

Of course I saw it. I've competed at a national level and been involved and interested in athletics for 25 years. The IAAF woman came across like an oblivious jobsworth. And I refer you to my previous comments above.

Wow

And now the BBC is reporting the iaaf as stating they were "under instruction to quarantine" athletes. Simple fact is that neither iaaf nor PHE has any authority to impose a quarantine for the obvious reason that the disease is not considered sufficiently serious for such powers to be legally authorised. If it was a sufficiently dangerous disease that quarantining was legally mandated of course I'd fully suppose their actions, but instead they were just making up rules as they went along.

And now the BBC is reporting the iaaf as stating they were "under instruction to quarantine" athletes.

Public Health England's 'instruction' letter copied below....

6 August 2017
Dear Team Leaders and Team Doctors

As you may have heard there have been some cases of acute gastro
enteritis in some athletes and staff members in a small number of teams.

In order to ensure the safety of your team and others linked to the event,
you are obliged to attend a meeting held by the LOC and IAAF either;

at the Guoman Tower Hotel at the Marathon Athlete Call Room at 17.30hrs
or at the TIC in the Stadium at 18.45hrs.

To contain the situation and protect your athletes, we strongly request you
comply with the following directions:

1. Report to the Guoman Tower Hotel Medical Room (430) as soon as
possible any episode of diarrhoea and vomiting. This report should
include the name, category of the person and the room number 2. The
person must be isolated and hotel staff will assist in allocating another
room. 3. Recommendations from Public Health England say the affected
person must remain isolated for 48 hours after the last episode of vomiting
or diarrhoea and therefore, the person will need to take their meals in their
room.

The Hotel have applied Public Health England’s recommendations on
enhanced cleaning procedures and will support all measures in relation to
these matters.

Individuals must be vigilant on personal hygiene and apply the following:

1. Wash your hands thoroughly after going to the toilet, using soap, hot
water and clean towels. 2. Wash your hands before having a meal or a
drink.

Yours sincerely

LOC Head of Medical IAAF Medical Delegate

So, would you have imposed quarantine or not?

Thirty other athletes from other teams have been quarantined, their federations haven't made a fuss, and the outbreak appears to be under control.

Or we could have left it to run it's course, and seen how many other athletes, teams and events could be affected. In front of 60,000 paying fans each day.

You make that call glasgowdan.

I'm not saying it's been brilliantly handled by the IAAF, and I feel for that Botswanan runner, but plenty of other athletes will have been screwed over by illness or injury in the run up to the games. It happens.

But the point of the thread was the embarrassing amateurish bullying by ill-informed pundits of a woman who held her nerve despite the idiocy she was facing. The producer/director of that broadcast needs to be hauled over for it.

The previous night's 'discussion' about Semenya was similar; Radcliffe going on about how the rules should be 'fair for the majority', mainly meaning that Semenya shouldn't be allowed to run because the other poor athletes can't beat her

Semenya is a different and whole lot more complex situation,

Is it though? As I understand it:

- Semenya is biologically female (despite the claims and concerns, she's taken the tests and that's what she is)
- She has naturally occurring testosterone levels that are much higher than normally seen in females
- These levels give her a significant competitive advantage

Surely that's just unfortunate for the other athletes, but not unfair, isn't it, simple as that? If she'd been born with, I dunno, really long legs that gave her a similar advantage, would there be the same furore?

Is it though? As I understand it:
- Semenya is biologically female

define "female".

Totally get that it's a bit of a minefield, but for the purposes of this surely it's "someone who passes the tests used by the IAAF to determine an athlete is female"?

That's the thing though - his participation would not automatically equal "everyone gets the bug". A tiny chance it may be passed to one or two others.

Some people have been watching too many disaster films.

A tiny chance it may be passed to one or two others.

And if that had happened, the IAAF would have been crucified.

They were damned if they did, damned if they didn't.

The BBC lot will have very much seen it from the athletes side, having generally been of that ilk. This in turns will mean they are fiercely competitive and you would have to cut off a limb to stop them competing.

You can therefore understand why the obtuse and awkward questions as they just do not 'get it' as the desire to compete far outweighs concern for others health and welfare.

I have to admit if it was me I would not have gone to the medical centre as I would not want to risk being quarantined so that I could compete. That probably makes me a dick but hey what can I say, I bet a fair few more don't come forward now.

But yeh it was awkward and I also fully understand that the IAAF are following 'guidelines' not rule but guidelines and are on balance doing the right thing if generally they are not communicating it well. She did well under pressure and I can imagine her desire to tell them where to go was high.

. A tiny chance it may be passed to one or two others.

Oooh... interesting! Makwala to get a 200m run on his own tonight, and if he runs under 20.53 they'll give him a place in tonight's 200m semi. 🙂

[url= http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/athletics/world-athletics-championships-2017-isaac-makwala-norovirus-200m-semi-finals-individual-time-trial-a7884821.html ]http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/general/athletics/world-athletics-championships-2017-isaac-makwala-norovirus-200m-semi-finals-individual-time-trial-a7884821.html[/url]

If he gets the sudden urge to go he'll beat that easily.

I believe Mariya Shatalova is running tonight as well.

Well the situation is a mess but from where they were this morning allowing him to run a solo heat is a good save from the iaaf. Hope he can make it and also get through the semi a couple of hours later.

Hope he can make it and also get through the semi a couple of hours later.

I think they may have messed up his prescription.

Well the hope is he won't find it too hard...

Let's just hope he's not running any relays!

Erm.....the baton is here....

20.20 Well done more than pleased for him 😀

Yes that's fantastic. As the 200's his stronger event it probably hasn't cost him too much in the end. Kudos to the iaaf for an imaginative solution.

It is an imaginative solution.

But what about any other athletes quarantined? Will they be given the same opportunity if they've missed a heat?

If there are any with finals yet to be contested (I don't know), I would expect that they would want the same treatment

It intensely annoyed me the whole thing. The BBC is a joke frankly and that should never have been allowed to happen.