THE Seychelles is generally a tranquil archipelago in the Indian Ocean but what goes on there today will send waves through world sport. That is where the executive committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) will meet up, having it in their power to lift the suspension of Rusada, Russia’s anti-doping agency, and pave the way for the nation’s readmission into international sport after being ostracised for orchestrating a major recent doping scandal. On the other hand, in the eyes of many, choosing to pursue that course of action could undermine the credibility of Wada and its Scottish president Craig Reedie for good.
Let’s start at the beginning on this one. Back in 2016, based on the testimony of whistle blower Dr Grigory Rodchenkov, the McLaren report found that more than 1000 athletes had benefited from an ‘institutional conspiracy’ to artificially improve athletic performance amongst athletes and officials within the Russian Ministry of Sport and the FSB, the Russian security service.
The lengths officials went to included adding salt and Nescafe granules to urine samples to trick testers, while at the Sochi Winter Olympics Laboratory tainted samples were passed through a ‘mouse hole’ to security personnel and replaced with clean ones. A “systematic and centralised cover up” of all this began before the London Olympics in 2012 and continued through to 2015.
A fairly serious business then, by all accounts. So it is remarkable to think that, less than two years after the release of part two of that report, the recommendation from Wada’s compliance review committee (CRC) is that its executive committee should vote to end Rusada’s suspension.
While this was a suggestion made on the grounds the country had “sufficiently acknowledged” failures, this is a fairly remarkable conclusion given there is no evidence Russia have met either of the two criteria laid down by Wada as part of its ‘roadmap’ for return. First, it was charged with accepting the findings of the McLaren report, and secondly it was ordered to grant full access to its Moscow laboratory.
Perhaps fittingly, given such a subject, somewhere along the line it is these demands which are thought to have been watered down. That is to say, a compromise suggested by Reedie and the organisation’s Swiss director general Olivier Niggli was accepted in June.
“It’s my convinced view that the best thing Wada can do is have an efficient and well-operated anti-doping system in Russia and we’ve been trying to do that for two years,” was Reedie’s take on things. “This moves things forward.”
There is just one problem with all this: for many high-profile athletes, politicians, members of his own executive committee, not to mention interested members of the wider community, this is doping anything but moving things forward.
Instead, they feel it is more like a giant leap backwards. There are seven members of Wada’s Athletes Committee for a start – Ben Sandford, Chiel Warner, Greta Neimans, Hayley Wickenheiser, Vikki Aggal, Petr Koukal and Richard Schmidt. “It is for Rusada to be compliant, not for Wada to change its conditions to make Rusada compliant,” their joint statement read “It should not be possible to commit the biggest doping scandal of the 21st Century and then be reinstated without completing the conditions that have been set. Any compromise will be a devastating blow to clean athletes and clean sport.”
And they are hardly lone voices in the wilderness. Wada vice-president Linda Helleland, who could stand for Reedie’s top job, says she will vote against lifting the suspension, and Nicole Sapstead of Ukad agrees that this sends out entirely the wrong message to the cheats. “In times like this you need to hold the line,” Sapstead said. “And if you have to move that line then you should at least have the courtesy to explain why, not in this deceitful and underhand way.”
As for Rodchenkov, Rusada’s re-instatement “would be a catastrophe for Olympic sport ideals, the fight against doping and the protection of clean athletes.” Being unable to trust your fellow athletes is bad enough without being unable to trust those whose job it is to clear the whole mess up.
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