In fact, it would allow for a lot of things that definitely look very bad.

Off topic, but I'm wondering if Lily now has any competition for the largest grant (70% of total split between male/female) from Amy who is currently WR#68.  

http://www.usada.org/spirit-of-sport/education/athletes-adhd-know-about-tues/" rel="nofollow - https://www.usada.org/spirit-of-sport/education/athletes-adhd-know-about-tues/

http://www.tennis.com/news/articles/tennis-player-fernando-verdasco-accepts-2-month-doping-ban" rel="nofollow - https://www.tennis.com/news/articles/tennis-player-fernando-verdasco-accepts-2-month-doping-ban

It sounds more like he was not where he said he was going to be at that time, so they showed up and couldn't do the random, unannounced drug test, not that he failed any test.

Yes, what Kanak is going through is not uncommon in tennis.  It is just not a good thing when it coincides with a period of improvement.   Hoping it is worked out.

https://www.globalsportsadvocates.com/library/sports-attorney-whereabouts-failure.cfm

The existence of doping agencies runs completely counter to this.  People do want to know how the sausage was made, to borrow your phraseology. 

Outside of sports, even for things like movies, the existence and popularity of social media influencers like Derek from "More Plates for Dates" where he comments on whether certain entertainer bodybuilding results are achieved naturally or not shows there is some interest in the truth even if it isn't universal. The desire to know exists in a substantial part of the population. It is even more salient because there are people who want to emulate these stars so they need to have some rough idea of what is achievable through emulation.  Saying that no one cares how the sausage was made is IMHO an overstatement. 

With Kanak part of the challenge is that this is coming up after a period of good results.  In any case I hope for the best. The look is really bad though. 

Those are the things that make it not look good. 

Maybe he was just acting like an irresponsible young person and missed the tests and thought that the consequences wouldn't really be that bad...or maybe there were issues that we dont know about.

I hope he isn't doping and that this whole issue is straightened out so he can continue to play and get even better.  He is now doing quite well in the German League.

I don't have a big problem with doping for table tennis players compared to other sports. Rather than needing big advantages in strength and stamina levels, I feel like doping just allows players to train the skills of the sport with less injuries. Just by training, there are so many repetitive movements that inevitably lead to wear and tear and injuries for different joints and muscles.

I'd be curious to know how widespread it is at the top level. I wouldn't be surprised if it was very common

I'm far from expert on this, but i believe this kind of thing is not about an athlete failing to attend a scheduled test.

If you're in the USADA testing pool you're required to inform them where you are at all times, which allows a tester to surprise you at any time, showing up and administering a random test. So if one day you go train at a different facility, or your team contest is rescheduled, or you decide to go skiing; you need to tell USADA where you'll be. If USADA shows up at your expected location and you're not there, that's a whereabouts failure. It's usually an indication of carelessness, not doping.

It doesn't matter what country you're from. A whereabouts failure is not good, but it's also not doping.

I don't think the top US or Russian table tennis players are using performance enhancing drugs. But that's just my uninformed guess.

A lot of modern testing of athletes is done using a baseline view of that the athlete is like and seeing how far your test results deviate from the baseline.  If you are not where you said you would be and it causes a delay in access, it can throw off the ability to build a consistent profile that shows your biological profile.  

USADA testing can be pretty frustrating and lots of athletes complain about it, especially in tennis.  Obviously we are all waiting to hear the details but it isn't a good look in the absence of information.  

Kanak seems like the kind of person who wouldn't use illegal drugs.  

Any drug that increases relevant hormone production and enables the development of strength development and quicker recovery pretty much does that by facilitating more focus and training.

I have to look more at the details but there was a time that even taking stimulants like adderall required exemptions because it enabled concentration on routines in gymnastics.  People would always make the argument that the drug wasn't enhancing the performance, but it is a thinner line than you think.

You don't even need hypertrophy to get stronger taking medication, lots of muscle and strength can be developed at fairly invisible level on a low fat athlete,  especially in table tennis where most of the work is on the lowee body/legs.

I should've been more clear - the general public is very much anti-drugs as a whole, but the sports themselves are filled with drug users [or 'cheats']. The issue is that people want their 'heroes' to be clean and hate on them when they are not, which is even most movie-stars that are clearly juicing, claim 'natty.' The organizations in charge of the sports just want the stars and games to be played, and the drug agencies operate with that in mind...

I think it would be remiss to not research drug agencies and whose interests they are serving.

USADA has been incredibly shady WRT their servicing of the UFC, and the only members of the media with journalistic integrity are pretty unanimous in expressing that sentiment.

There's a reason none of the high profile fighters pop, and if they do, they invent bogus stuff like 'pulsing' in such a way that's ridiculed by anyone with half a brain cell, and obviously someone like Derek shits on them for [Jon Jones].

The care is more virtue signalling / public wanting their athletes to be clean, but the athletes are not clean and the organizations [from the ATP to the UFC to the NFL] not wanting to clean up the sport, rather just maintain the image that the sport is clean so the public isn't irate, the stars have a good image and the show goes on.

Thanks, I get you now. I don't disagree much if at all, a lot of tennis makes me wonder whether any of Federer,  Djokovic and Nadal are really clean.  A lot of this stuff makes you think about ethics and what it means to have a fair playing field.  I think now with the biological profiles,  it is much harder to cheat, the main questions are related to collusion with commercial interests.  That usually takes decades to be revealed if at all. It is hard to make a man do something that affects his paycheck negatively. 

Barney was 20 years ago and young.  He has really pulled it all together.  He's got a great wife and kids.  He's also doing a great job of coaching.  As a bonus, he's a very nice guy.

In some sports (cycling) almost everyone cheats.

Some people are quick to accuse others of cheating, because if they were in the same position, they would cheat.

There are others that think that to get to the highest level in a sport, competitors have to cheat.

Some think that if everyone does it and the rule is not enforced (boosting) it's not really cheating.

I find at times if my opponent calls the score wrong in my favor and I'm not sure, or I don't question it, I will lose the next few points, feeling I may have cheated.

From listening to people like Derek and those journalistic people [Luke Thomas etc], it's almost certain guys like Nadal, Fed, Djokovic are. Nadal and Djokovic are doing things in terms of physicality that are complete outliers for pretty much anyone on tour, and have for decades. 

How can you be fitter than 99% of the tour, and more explosive...when a good chunk of athletes are doping? 

I don't know about biological profiles impacting things - I do know for a fact that testing is always behind the production of drugs, and that regimens are incredibly smart and calculated meaning that the windows an athlete can test positive at are very very  narrow. 

Even for something as potent as EPO: 

The biological profile I think you can find n article on and it pretty much detects anything.   Any major drug consumption will have a hormonal effect that deviates significantly from your normal profile. Doesn't matter what it is.

Of course if commercial interests don't want the most stringent testing, then it doesn't matter.

https://www.wada-ama.org/en/athlete-biological-passport" rel="nofollow - https://www.wada-ama.org/en/athlete-biological-passport

This is why the frequency of testing to complete the passport is critical.  Just innocently missing tests is a way of messing with the profile.

If your random testing trips up something, you can become the focus of more stringent testing.  So as innocent as missing tests sounds, it is hardly innocent. 

Sources:

https://sportky.zoznam.sk/c/317649/americka-hviezda-si-moze-buchat-hlavu-o-stenu-mladicka-nerozvaznost-sa-nevyplaca" rel="nofollow - https://sportky.zoznam.sk/c/317649/americka-hviezda-si-moze-buchat-hlavu-o-stenu-mladicka-nerozvaznost-sa-nevyplaca

https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/baden-wuerttemberg/friedrichshafen/spieler-ttf-ochsenhausen-wird-gesperrt-wegen-verpasstem-dopingtest-100.html" rel="nofollow - https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/baden-wuerttemberg/friedrichshafen/spieler-ttf-ochsenhausen-wird-gesperrt-wegen-verpasstem-dopingtest-100.html

You have to miss 3 in a year to be suspended though.  What happened the other 2 times?

Maybe they notified him at his old address as well?

The whole thing is bizarre.

Were he there, he would have had to defeat Truls and Dima for his team to have a chance.

Seems Lin Yun Ju is there too...

https://ttbl.de/liveticker/pokal-liveticker/" rel="nofollow - https://ttbl.de/liveticker/pokal-liveticker/

That is unfortunate and weird.  I guess I will have to see the matches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPXOXcKaQUY" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPXOXcKaQUY

And he must be kicking himself for missing the event, held not far from Ochsenhausen, in front of 5,000 spectators. (The SuperBowl of German table tennis, kind of...)

Standard amateur bh shot when out of position 

So unusual for Timo to lose form when playing a BH shot. 

whats the verdict?

Unfortunate. Suspended through November 30, 2023.

http://www.usada.org/sanction/kanak-jha-receives-doping-sanction/" rel="nofollow - https://www.usada.org/sanction/kanak-jha-receives-doping-sanction/

http://www.usada.org/wp-content/uploads/Kanak-Jha-AAA-Award.pdf" rel="nofollow - https://www.usada.org/wp-content/uploads/Kanak-Jha-AAA-Award.pdf

The "award" also voids his results from September-November 2022 (including PanAm championships and a couple of WTT events).

Now at NBC Sports:

  http://olympics.nbcsports.com/2023/03/20/kanak-jha-table-tennis-ban-suspension-usada-drug-tests/" rel="nofollow - https://olympics.nbcsports.com/2023/03/20/kanak-jha-table-tennis-ban-suspension-usada-drug-tests/

I wonder to what degree it affects his TTBL results as well.  Maybe they let the team keep the results but void his individual contributions.

According to the article the call is just a courtesy call as the tester is not required to call the athlete before showing up. Also, a German phone number from what I can tell can be 10 digits. If you were an American tester given a 10 digit number to call a German athlete playing in the US, would it be reasonable for you to not dial Germany's country code first? 

I got a very different impression reading the whole thing.  I got the impression that because Kanak had never failed a test, he just didn't take his responsibility seriously enough but that it wqs clear the tester went beyond what he had to do to contact Kanak but Kanak got unlucky on specific details but such crap happens when you are already in a hole of missing two tests ams gets magnified.  Kanak will unfortunately miss the WTTC and other tournamenrs.  I think his luck will be that he is playing out of North America in the qualifiers and there aren't any obviously talented new challengers. And of course, he is young.

It's obvious that Kanak is not blameless here. I would be happier if the WADA rules were being enforced uniformly for everyone.

Twiddler wrote: Many in the U.S have been disappointed in Kanak not participating in the Nationals and U.S Opens the last couple of years and now this. It doesn't make sense to not support  your home association and membership.

Kanak already won 4 straight Nationals, from 2016 to 2019. He is now trying to become a professional table tennis player. That can't happen here (USA).

Edit: I'm not really disagreeing with you here, Twiddler, I would like to see Kanak come back and win more Nationals too. But I understand why he doesn't. There is also the sideshow that is the USATT at the moment.

Have other players been treated less harshly for similar transgressions? This does seem like brutal punishment, as though they might be making an example of him.

I suspect the 3 months is outdated or old or has extenuating circumstances - if you read the court report, the minimum Kanak could have gotten is 1 year.  The cynic in me says they gave him 2 so they could get it to one on appeal.

Kanak already won 4 straight Nationals, from 2016 to 2019. He is now trying to become a professional table tennis player. That can't happen here (USA).

Edit: I'm not really disagreeing with you here, Twiddler, I would like to see Kanak come back and win more Nationals too. But I understand why he doesn't. There is also the sideshow that is the USATT at the moment.

Kanak was given a spot in the 2020 Olympics by USATT. He did not even have to qualify. So he owes them some support in my opinion. He can use the USATT for his World's and Olympic entries but not play in their big events?

If I remember correctly, it was Kanak who was instrumental in securing the US men's team's spot in the Olympics by beating Canada in the decisive match. He was then selected for singles based on his world ranking (as was Lily Zhang). He did not have to play the individual trials but he did qualify by fulfilling the previously established qualification criteria - he was not "given a spot."

stimulants and nootropics.

This is a situation where some interpretation is required,  similar to your statement around how the US qualified for the Olympics.

There were initiatives to get rid of rankings criteria altogether and solely use trials.  Kanak's situation was one of the reasons why those criteria were kept IMHO.  So whether the criteria would have pre-existed without a nod to him and Lily is a real question.

Sure, I'm all for providing more context and offering various "interpretations" - the criteria for Olympic qualifying have certainly been rather messy as far as both ITTF and USATT are concerned.

As far as how the US men's team qualified for recent Olympics, I realize now that I conflated 2020 with 2016, when young Kanak's win over Pierre-Luc Theriault (after 0-5 in game 7) was decisive. In any case, no one can dispute that he at least helped the US team qualify twice for the Olympics over Canada - so it's not like he hasn't done anything for USATT or his country or whatever.

That argument holds for WTTC where extra spots are given for being half-decent.  That doesn't hold for Olympic competition, especially when it is reasonably possible for the team to make it without you.  Just saying.