The World Anti-Doping Agency held a board meeting on Monday, May 12th in Montreal, where they heard calls from board members demanding tougher consequences for countries who aren’t compliant within the rules and to launch further investigations.
Sir Craig Reedie, the president of WADA, stated “WADA heard the call today from its Foundation Board members; in particular, its Athlete Committee members, who asked for tougher consequences for non-compliance and for further investigations,” said Sir Craig Reedie. “We understand fully that, in the current climate, with new doping allegations surfacing, we have work to do to further secure athletes’ confidence in clean sport,” he continued. “We appreciate the sense of urgency in light of the upcoming Rio Games and I can assure you that we take this responsibility very seriously.”
After a meeting on May 2nd WADA’s independent compliance review committee (CRC) confirmed that outstanding issues with the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya (ADAK) had not been addressed and made a non-compliance recommendation to the board. At the meeting on May 12th the foundation board declared ADAK non-compliant with immediate effect. The Kenyan authorities have been issued deadlines to introduce a parliamentary bill, policy and rules for ADAK. WADA now hands over the decision to their stakeholders, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for their consideration and action.
The IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federation) has cleared Kenya’s track athletes to participate at the Games despite their non-compliant ruling. The IOC will have the final ruling on whether or not their distance runners competing, but it is unlikely that they will be banned from competing at the Olympics this year (or any other athletes). If ADAK doesn’t make improvements by the end of 2016, they will face disciplinary action in 2017.
Poland’s National Anti-Doping Organization (NADO) was added to WADA’s ‘watch-list’, and were given deadlines of August 12th and September 12th to pass code compliance rules and to resolve their issue of result management process. Failure to do so will place them on the non-compliance list.
Andorra was removed from the non-compliance list, and an update on testing in Russia was provided by the board. “There is clearly still a long road ahead for RUSADA; and, this update indicates that much work needs to be done; however, now that WADA has two independent experts in place, I feel much more confident that the issues we are currently facing will be addressed without delay”, said Reese.
Find the release on WADA’s website here.