Stephen Francis defends former MVP athletes

Renowned track and field coach Stephen Francis has jumped to the defence of his former athletes Asafa Powell and Sherone Simpson, describing their doping cases as a fiasco from the start.      

Powell and Simpson have been granted permission by the Court of Arbitration for Sports to compete until their appeals are heard by the court on July 7 and 8.   

Both have been entered to compete at the National trials this week starting on Friday.  

Francis says their cases should never have reached CAS.

“The whole thing was a fiasco, I think the insistence of the government to handle something locally, like drug testing and drug compliance, which they are obviously capable of doing is not in the best interest of athletics, or the athletes or sport in general” coach Francis said.

In further lashing out at  JADCO and the Jamaican government in their handling of the Powell/Simpson case, Francis says Jamaica should have stayed with the Caribbean anti-doping body.

“I think we are going to continue to see gaps like these which are going to embarrass us further and further” the MVP Head Coach stated. “We should really have been a part of the Caribbean Anti-doping Commission. We were at one time, and then we decided that we wanted to go on our own and I think this has been the result”, he further added.