After an almost two-year fight to clear his name, Jeff Adams won the US Nationals in Arizona this past weekend. Here is the full text of the press release sent out after Adams’ victory.
Canadian Jeff Adams wins at US Nationals
In his first race back after a two year hiatus, Jeff Adams won the US National Championships in the 1500m wheelchair race today in Tempe, Arizona. In a hard fought battle, Adams came around four of the top Americans with 200m to go in the race, winning in a time of 3:08 (three minutes and eight seconds). The US Nationals was an open event to non-American athletes.
“I really don’t have the words to explain the feelings I have right now. The last two years have been absolutely the most difficult of my entire life – but they were also a huge opportunity to practice what I preach; whenever I do a motivational talk, I tell students and business people that the barriers we face in life are a means to define ourselves as the people we want to be. We can’t overcome every barrier we face, but having the courage to face up to every single one is the only kind of person I want to be. I looked at this race as a way to make that point, and I’m excited that things went my way. To win in my first race back, against all of the top Americans after not racing for two years took an enormous effort.”
Adams recently won a landmark decision from the Court of Arbitration for Sport, completely exonerating him of allegations of an anti-doping offence. The three person tribunal found him to be completely without any fault or negligence in the matter, and eliminated any sanction, noting his high character in the decision. The decision took two years to make.
“Sitting out for two years only to be found completely innocent was frustrating, but the worst part of it is that I wasn’t awarded any costs, I spent $750 000 to prove my innocence, which to athletes and ordinary people, seems like an enormous amount of money, but it’s not that unusual in cases like this. I’m working on a way to pay Tim. If it takes me the rest of my life, he’ll get every penny I owe him.”
Tim Danson, a prominent Toronto lawyer took on the case at the request of Adams. He represented the families of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy, as well as other high profile cases involving athletes, including Steve Moore and Bobby Hull.
Adams is in the process of making an appeal to the Canadian Center for Ethics in Sport to make arrangements to pay his costs.
“The Canadian Center for Ethics in Sport has a golden opportunity to do the ethical thing here – no athlete should be saddled with a lifetime of debt to prove their innocence. Every penny of the prosecution was paid for by public money, and every penny of my defense is coming out of my pocket. Although the Court of Arbitration [for Sport] didn’t award costs to me, so although they’re not being forced by a court to help me, there is nothing preventing the CCES from doing the right thing, and living up to not only their name, but to live up to the expectations of Canadians for fairness. To refuse to help me with my costs would send a terrible message to athletes everywhere; win or lose, you lose. It also puts access to justice out of reach for most Canadian athletes”.
Adams still faces an uphill battle to make the Paralympic team going to Beijing. Athletics Canada requires all athletes to make qualifying standards in the distances they will compete in, and Adams has yet to achieve those.
“We were quite a ways off in both the preliminary round and in the final. I’m physically able to do the time, I just need to find the right track, with the right conditions, and the right pack of racers. The fact that we were 6 seconds off the qualifying time at the US Championships is a good indicator of just how difficult the standards are to hit.”
Adams will attempt to meet the qualifying times in Atlanta, the last week in June. He is attempting to organize and sanction his own track meet in order to do so.
