Friday, May 24, 2019

Day 11: Hawkeye in Training


Today is Lausanne, Switzerland we started off the day by visiting the Tribunal Arbitral du Sport more commonly known as the CAS of the court of Arbitration for Sport. We met with a lawyer named Brent Nowicki who works on cases there who happened to be from Buffalo, New York. He was taking over hosting us from someone who previously worked there and was a Syracuse Graduate. Brent played lacrosse at Fairfield university and then went to law school and worked at a law firm. He was hired by the player’s association of the Premier Lacrosse League on the side and fell in love with working in law with sports whether it was endorsements or arbitration or things like that. He applied for an opening position for a lawyer at CAS and has now been there about 7 years and says “I love every second of my job. I never wake up and think, ‘ Man I have to go to work today’.”

Us posing with Brent and his new Syracuse hat as a thank you


Brent told us a lot of very interesting things about the CAS. He explained how they operate with arbitration, both sides show up for the case and it is ruled on between 1 or 3 arbitrators depending on what the parties in the case decide. The CAS has around three hundred and fifty different arbitrators who they cycle through and call in based on a variety of factors such as race, gender, background and sports knowledge. The laws that are applied to each case vary significantly depending on the type of case and where it originated. They could even refer to the laws of that country in their rulings. Often the world committee for that sport makes a ruling before the CAS does and the CAS mostly handles appeals outside of the Olympic Games but the CAS might rule differently on a case or appeal than another organization.

One of the main cases that people kept asking questions about was the recent ruling of CAS against Caster Semenya. She is a South African middle distance runner who is externally a female, but was born with internal male parts, mainly testicles. These male parts produce an abnormal amount of testosterone giving her a competitive advantage over females because she had testosterone levels closer to men and she has never lost a race. The IAAF ruled that she had to suppress her natural hormone levels to the level of normal women, taking away her natural advantage/ capabilities. She appealed this to the CAS, but the CAS ruled in the IAAF’s favor. This was a very controversial case in sport.

Next, we went to the World Excellence center for archery to take a tour and try out archery ourselves. We saw someone training outside and shooting at the Olympic distance of 70 meters. We toured all of the world class facility including weight and massage rooms, food and game rooms, and room for company events that get held there. We learned how to shoot the bows and we had a lot of fun popping balloons and having competitions against each other.


One of our instructors was a national judge I believe for the Olympics and the other was an Olympian for Maloui.  He put on a shooting demonstration for us from 70 meter and was consistently shooting and 8 or above. The target was so far away we had to use a spotting scope to see where he hit. It was incredible watching him shoot a massive bow.

Written by Andrew Perodeau

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