Anti-Doping Reforms Can't Wait

(ATR) Anti-doping reforms can’t wait says the CEO of the Institute for National Anti-Doping Organizations.

Joseph de Pencier tells Around the Rings that sports leaders have to deliver on their pledge to reform the troubled worldwide system that investigates and enforces doping violations. INADO represents 59 agencies which are responsible for conducting anti-doping activities in their countries.

On Oct. 8, IOC President Thomas Bach convened the latest meeting of the Olympic Summit, an ad hoc organization of sports body leaders that makes recommendations on major issues affecting the Olympic movement.

In this case, it’s the controversy that’s erupted over accusations that Russia has engaged in a program of state-sponsored doping. INADO is one of the groups that backed a total ban of Russia from the Rio Olympics as a result. The IOC chose instead to allow the individual sports federations to decide whether to bar Russian competitors.

Now the IOC is trying to move forward on doping reforms to prevent future crises.

De Pencier says while iNADO welcomes the declaration of the Olympic Summit to move forward with reforms, such as greater authority for the World Anti-Doping Agency and increased funding, he says the summit came up short in some areas.

"There was nothing explicit said about state sponsored doping in Russia or what is the moral responsibility of the IOC and Russian sport leaders to change the culture there," de Pencier said in a phone interview from the iNADO headquarters in Bonn, Germany.

So far the IOC has stopped short of accusing Russia of directing a corrupted anti-doping system. Bach says the IOC is waiting for a final report from Richard McLaren, the Canadian lawyer who has already issued a report for WADA that raises concerns about Russia. The report includes accusations from a whistleblower that samples from Russian athletes taken during the Sochi Olympics were tampered with to avoid positive drug tests.

De Pencier says the findings of the first report from McLaren have been enough evidence for the Court of Arbitration for Sport to uphold decisions by the International Association of Athletics Federations and the International Paralympic Committee to ban Russian competitors from the Rio Olympics and Paralympics.

The iNADO chief executive also was expecting a condemnation from the Olympic Summit of the Fancy Bears cyber attacks which have been launched against the confidential database of WADA. De Pencier says the evidence indicates Russian hackers are to blame and that the attack was launched through an IOC account on the WADA system.

De Pencier says more dirty tricks like cyber attacks or the hoax just perpetrated against IPC President Phillip Craven could be ahead for iNADO and other groups and individuals leading the push for anti-doping changes.

Craven was recorded on the phone speaking to an imposter posing as Edwin Moses, the Olympic medalist who is chairman of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. In the recordings, the hoaxster gets Craven to call one IOC member a gangster. Craven, a member of the Olympic Summit, promised that he would speak out during the Saturday meeting if Bach tried to avoid taking action.

"If Bach tries to pull a fast one, I'm going to slam him and I hope Craig Reedie [president of the World Anti-Doping Agency] does the same."

The recordings of the three phone calls between Craven and the imposter first surfaced on Russian TV. Craven won’t comment on the hoax. Moses tells ATR he was not involved. USADA was one of the national anti-doping organizations that called for a blanket ban on Russian athletes from Rio, along with WADA, as well as Craven’s IPC. The IOC chose to disregard those recommendations for Rio, allowing the international federations to decide whether Russian athletes were eligible to compete.

De Pencier tells ATR all national anti-doping agencies must be mindful of the threat of cyber attacks – or hoaxes like the Craven phone calls.

Moving ahead, de Pencier says the IOC must be ready to deal with the conclusions of the McLaren Report as quickly as possible, especially with the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea little more than a year away.

"We have to protect the clean athletes," de Pencier says.

Written by Ed Hula.

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