WADA Faces Key Decisions as Rio 2016 Approaches

(ATR) As the Rio 2016 Olympics near, the World Anti-Doping Agency faces several challenges in order to ensure clean competition at the Games this August.

WADA will hold its Executive and Foundation Board meetings in Montreal on May 11 and 12 where the boards will clear the air on key threats to the clean sport movement.

The top item on the agenda will likely be the newest probe into Russian doping following a documentary on CBS show 60 Minutes that claims at least four Russian gold medalists at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics took steroids to gain a competitive advantage.

On Tuesday, WADA released a statement from president Craig Reedie saying it will "probe these new allegations immediately".

"The claims made in the program offer real cause for concern, as they contain new allegations regarding attempts to subvert the anti-doping process at the Sochi Games," says Reedie.

The latest doping allegations against Russian athletes come while Russia is still attempting to recover from its athletics federation being suspended from the Rio Olympics. WADA has provided the Russian Athletics Federation as well as the Russian Anti-Doping Agency with reinstatement conditions that must be met before Russian track and field athletes can compete in international competitions.

Although the country is making progress towards reinstatement, WADA is not expected to declare Russia code-compliant at this week’s meetings.

Russia is not the only country that is at odds with WADA. Over the past few months, WADA and sports officials in Kenya have been sparring over the country’s sport laws. WADA originally gave Kenya a February deadline to pass new laws in the country and then extended the deadline to May 2.

Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta on April 22 signed into law a long-delayed anti-doping bill, a key requirement for the country to become WADA-compliant and avoid potential sanctions. The WADA Foundation Board will determine if Kenya is once again code-compliant at its meeting on Thursday, May 12.

WADA has also recently suspended the anti-doping laboratories in Beijing, China, Bloemfontein, South Africa and Lisbon, Portugal. The suspensions raised questions as to whether the lack of labs could affect athlete testing ahead of the Rio Olympics in August. WADA president Craig Reedie says the suspensions will not affect the testing.

"It is important for athletes to note that, as a result of these suspensions, all samples will now be transported securely to one of the remaining 31 WADA-accredited laboratories worldwide, thereby ensuring that there are no gaps in the anti-doping sample analysis procedures and that the integrity of the samples is fully maintained," Reedie said in a statement.

WADA will also likely face several questions regarding the addition of meldonium to its list of banned substances in January 2016. Since its addition, more than 100 athletes have tested positive for the drug including Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova.

In April, WADA issued a clarification on the drug that allowed athletes a larger window to be considered clean after realizing meldonium stayed in a person’s body longer than expected. The executive board will likely discuss the impact of meldonium and whether it is indeed a threat to the clean sports movement.

The Executive and Foundation Board meetings this week also mark the last for WADA director general David Howman. Howman has served as director general for the organization for the past 13 years and will leave the post in June. Howman will be replaced by Olivier Niggli who has been with the organization since 2001, serving as chief financial officer for 10 years before becoming the chief operating officer.

Around the Rings will be on the scene for the two-day meeting and will speak with Howman following Thursday’s press conference about his tenure at WADA and the challenges that await him in the future.

Written by Kevin Nutley

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