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My home country Belgium has made a fool of itself one more time in front of the rest of the world. Not only has my country more ministers than any other country in the world, with more governments than a country as China for example (and there are only about ten and a half million people living in Belgium). There are the “peaceful fights” between the Flemish speaking in the North and the French speaking in the South (I always call myself a “Dutch speaking Belgian” as I hate the separation between the two regions) and as a result of this, there are various “Flemish authorities” who think of themselves that they are very, very important. The people working over there have egos which are almost rising as high as the Mount Everest.

What has happened? Two professional tennis players, Yanina Wickmayer (WTA-18) and Xavier Malisse (ATP-95) have been suspended to compete during the next year because they have forgotten to fill out their whereabouts as the WADA always expects every athlete in the world to do so. The ban is effective immediately, and lasts until November 4th of 2010. They have been suspended by the “Flemish Doping Court”. This means that Yanina Wickmayer has to stop immediately to compete at the B-Masters in Bali where she started yesterday. The only thing they can do is go into higher appeal at the International Sports Tribunal, TAS in Switzerland.

Wickmayer (20) made three times a mistake against the system of the whereabouts, which every athlete in the world has to fill out. Malisse (29) failed in filling them out twice, and missed one doping controle. They have not tested positive, but according to the rules, three offences is the same as one positive test.

They both have a logical explanation for their mistakes. Wickmayer said that the password to log in didn’t work, and the registered mail that was sent to warn her arrived while she was competing somewhere abroad. Malisse says that he couldn’t fill out the details because he didn’t have internet in the hotels where he was staying and on the tournaments where he was competing. And he forgot to tell the WADA that he was going to stay in the States instead of participating at Roland Garros in Paris where he was invited to have a doping test done.

So far the rules. Rules which are pretty insane in the first place. WADA expects every athlete to tell them where they are going to be, on each and every hour of each and every day, for the next three months. I don’t even know where I will be tomorrow or Saturday. I only know that I will be in Canada next week, but don’t ask me where I will be next Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon. Somewhere in the greater Toronto area, that’s the only thing I know. So I honestly believe it’s against the human rights to ask every athlete to fill these details out in a system that is pretty difficult to handle in the first place. And don’t forget that a lot of professional athletes are not amongst the most intelligent people anyhow (but don’t get me wrong, I don’t know Wickmayer nor Malisse personally, so I don’t know about them).

But again, this tiny little region in Western Europe which is called Flanders has got an organisation that wants to be more catholic than the Pope. For once we have an excellent talent coming up (after Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters - who both are returning to professional tennis again), the Flemish anti-doping authorities are just ruining two magnificent careers of two young athletes.

The Flemish should become a little more chauvinistic and take a look South of the Belgian border. I’m giving only one example: the French have tested the French professional cycling teams on average three times less than they tested the foreign cycling teams.

When things like this happen, I am not proud to be a Belgian. As a matter of fact, I feel deeply ashamed to be a Dutch speaking Belgian today…

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