In the American Eugene these days, qualifying competitions for the US national athletics team for the Olympic Games in Tokyo are being held.

For fans of running, jumping and throwing, this is one of the main events of the season, which invariably pleases with high results and bright struggle.

But this year, two scandalous episodes related to doping and a condescending attitude towards it came to the fore.

The "heroine" of the first story was Brianna McNeill, who competes in the 100-meter hurdles - the winner of the 2013 World Cup and the Olympic champion of Rio de Janeiro.

Her personal best is 12.26 seconds and is in fourth place among the best results in history.

But besides her sporting achievements, McNeill is also known for her regular anti-doping rule violations.

So, in 2016, she received a year of disqualification for missing three doping tests.

She was not present at two of them due to the fact that she was at a reception with US President Barack Obama at the White House and participated in the celebrations in her hometown.

In early 2021, McNeill again attracted the attention of anti-doping authorities.

The Independent Athletics Unit (AIU) suspended the athlete on suspicion of “interfering with the processing of test results,” without specifying the details of the case.

Six months later, the investigation was brought to an end, and a disciplinary tribunal of three arbitrators disqualified the American athlete for five years with a report dated August 15, 2020.

Thus, she will have to miss two Olympics and three World Championships.

What exactly McNeill was accused of was again not reported.

AIU noted that the complete decision cannot be published due to the confidential nature of the information.

McNeill immediately filed an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), and the latter made a very unusual decision to temporarily lift the suspension from the athlete until June 27.

This was in order for her to be able to take in the qualifying starts at Eugene.

CAS assured that the final decision on McNeill will be taken before the Tokyo Olympics.

On June 19, McNeill will compete in the preliminary races, and the very next day he will be able to compete in the finals for a place in the national team. Paradoxically, the athlete, who faces a five-year disqualification in a case, the details of which are carefully hidden, retains the chance to go to the main athletics competitions and compete for a medal there. And the participant who takes the fourth place will have to hope that the sanctions against McNeill will still come into force.

Another equally bizarre scandal has erupted over the middle distance runner Shelby Hoolihan.

In the world of athletics, she is known differently than McNeill, and so far she is remembered only for the fourth place in the 1500 meters at the last world championship.

She holds US records in both this distance and 5000 meters, and in this regard, she was the clear favorite of the qualifying competitions.

A few days before the US qualifiers, the AIU announced that Hoolihan tested positive for nandronol and should be suspended for four years.

At the same time, the organization did not report on her preliminary suspension, which began on January 14, and her case was considered by CAS directly, bypassing previous instances.

Hoolihan stated that she had never heard of the existence of nandronol, which is a steroid and is on the list of prohibited substances. According to the athlete, the substance could have entered the body along with a pork burrito, which she ate ten hours before passing a positive doping test. However, at the CAS hearing, she was unable to prove that she took the doping accidentally, and therefore she was sentenced to disqualification, which should lead to missing two Olympics.

Surprisingly, the decision of the main court in sports at first did not affect Hoolihan's ability to compete in the qualifying starts in Eugene.

She entered the list of participants and was supposed to run in the preliminary 5000 meters race on June 18.

The US Athletics Federation said Hoolihan could start as she was still awaiting an appeal against her suspension, as was McNeill.

  • Shelby Hoolihan

  • Reuters

  • © Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

This interpretation of the rules caused outrage among other athletes.

Many prominent US track and field athletes signed an open letter demanding that Hoolihan be kept out of the competition so as not to set a precedent for other offenders.

“This precedent may significantly complicate efforts to fight for clean sport for the foreseeable future.

It allows even offenders who have been found guilty of doping violations to compete, provided they have the financial support to appeal.

This decision causes significant sports and financial damage to responsible clean athletes, ”the letter says.

The AIU also reacted.

The organization issued a statement in which it recalled that the CAS decision is final and enforceable.

Accordingly, Hoolihan should have been banned from trying to qualify for the national team.

As a result, the name of the athlete was still deleted from the list of participants. As it turned out, Hoolihan planned to challenge the CAS decision in the Swiss Federal Court and requested an expedited appeal procedure in order to be able to compete in time. However, the statement was not accepted, since the CAS did not release the reasoning part of the verdict so that it could be heard in a civil court. No matter how much the US Athletics Federation wants to launch another disqualified athlete, all the last formal grounds have disappeared.