Sir Craig Reedie: “In the fight against doping, we are smarter than we were before”
Graphics by Nordcapstudio
LAUSANNE, May 1, 2020 - “Tour de Farce” and “Tour du Dopage” were the nicknames given to the 1998 Tour de France after a series of doping scandals hit the most prominent cycling race of the planet. The raids and arrests performed by the police during the event were the spark that lit what would become the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
Sir Craig Reedie, former WADA president and IOC member, was a guest at the AIPS e-College on Thursday, April 30, where he discussed doping in sports with the young reporters. During the meeting, he talked about the creation of the anti-doping organisation and different aspects of the past and the future in the fight against the use of illegal substances in sports, including how to tackle the current state of doping during the coronavirus lockdown.
Reedie has played an important part in many aspects in the world of sports: first by turning badminton into an Olympic sport as head of its international federation and then as member of the board of the organising committee of the Games of London 2012, before moving to his roles at the IOC and the WADA.
CREATION OF WADA. “The WADA was formed in 1999 to bring together the sports movements and the governments of the world. The catalyst for doing that was an incident in the Tour de France 1998, when French police stopped the race, checked all the accompanying vehicles and found out that they were full of prohibited substances and drugs. This was a situation that sports was finding difficult to control so we needed to have an alliance with governments to make it more efficient.”
Soon after, a meeting in Lausanne in 1999 saw the birth of the organisation, which was set to fight doping use in sports along with governments and find a common ground for punishments across every discipline and for all professional athletes. “Before WADA was formed, it could be that a cyclist was suspended for competition in Denmark but he could ride in France and in Germany. Equally, for a particular doping offence a cyclist would be sanctioned for a period of three months, at the same time a rower who had committed the same offence and with the same drug would be banned for life. In situations like this it was seen that an organisation like WADA would potentially be a good move.”
CHALLENGES OF WADA: The organisation sets the rules in the battle against the use of illegal substances, but governments and sports also have the work in reinforcing them. “We set the rules and other people adhere to them. That's how the system works, it is a very important part of sports organisations operations, it is becoming a very important part of the recognition of the problem from governments, who don't believe that it's a very good idea that their athletes cheat.”
“The testing is done by anti-doping organisations run by countries or run by sports. They do it under international standards. The international standards of proper testing are done under some rules that are written by WADA and passed by WADA, where there are I think 17 sports representatives on the board. Everybody signs up to the same set of rules and we have to enforce them and look after them.”
RUSSIAN AFFAIR: From 2010, voices from Russia began to talk about a state-sponsored doping programme but it wasn't until 2014, when investigative reporter Hajo Seppelt uncovered an alleged system of illegal substances led by the Russian government, that an inquiry was launched. An investigation of WADA confirmed the accusations, and this led to the removal of 111 athletes from the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, a ban of the Russian team from the 2016 Summer Paralympics, and a potential total exclusion for the Tokyo 2020 Games, which is still being appealed at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
“The Russian situation became acute because there was more understanding of the problems. That gained publicity from the media, from ARD in Germany in 2014 who produced a report with evidence from Russian whistle-blowers that there had been rampant cheating in the sport of track and field athletics in Russia. We established an inquiry commission, we actually didn't have the legal power to do that until the world anti-doping code was changed on the first of January 2015. Then our commission began to work to confirm the ARD story that there had been a huge cheating in track and field athletics in Russia. Then it transpired that there had been major cheating in many other sports in the country.
“While trying to solve the Russian problem by rebuilding their national anti-doping organisation (RUSADA) - which was turned from being completely ineffective to being very effective - one of the conditions to be compliant was broken by Russian officials. Particularly we needed access to the Moscow laboratory to look at the data and the samples held there and we got the huge surprise and great disappointment that Russian authorities had been tampering with the data. Hence the decision that the sports of the country will be penalised in major ways for a period of four years. The one major exception is that the sanctions will not apply to athletes that can prove that they have a clean doping record. But if they take part in competition, they will not take part officially as a Russian delegation.”
LOCKDOWN AND DOPING
Reedie admitted his concern about the dark times of lockdown. “The testing programmes for all athletes have not come to a complete hold but are in a much more limited level of activity and therefore I have to be cynical and say that some people will cheat. The challenge is what to do when this finishes, and when doping officials can get access to athletes,” he said.
And he went further on: “I think anybody who decides to cheat is taking the risk for a number of reasons. First of all, there is now a much greater degree of intelligence within WADA and other anti-doping organisations about where the cheats come from, geographically where they are and other aspects of intelligence. Secondly, we are smarter than we were before, we are now better in laboratory examinations, we've got a comprehensive list of prohibited substances and I also think, hopefully there is some understanding that if the 2020 Games are going ahead it is very important for sports that people behave. Most athletes in my view are clean, some are not. Lastly, we will store samples for a long period and as soon as science gets better we will retest them so anyone who cheats may well be caught.”
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
What do you think about people that have been involved in the past in doping and that currently work with sports and athletes?
The situation from WADA's point of view is quite clear. We have a rule in the world anti-doping code on prohibited association. We list the names of coaches, doctors and whoever who have committed offences and we say to athletes: “you should have nothing to do with these people.” Very few athletes dope on their own, there's always somebody else involved. Whether it is a doctor, or a coach, or an agent or a parent even. Very few people do it on their own. All this depends on communication, the list of people with prohibited association problems needs to be known and needs to be known from the authorities in the country, that's more effective.
You have been knighted by the Queen, were in the organising committee of the Olympic Games of London 2012 and were president of WADA, among other things. For you, which has been your more important achievement?
There is always a personal pleasure to go to Buckingham palace and be part of the honour parties there. But there are a few other moments in my life that are important. One was in the IOC session in East Berlin in 1985 when Juan Antonio Samaranch (then president of the committee) announced that badminton, my sport, would become an Olympic programme sport and that meant that it has developed all around the world in a marvellous way. The second one was in Singapore in 2005 when Jacques Rogge opened the envelope and said 'the games of 2012 are awarded to the city of London', I had set up the bidding committee. And a particular moment that I will always remember was the closing ceremony of the Paralympics in London when the chairman of our organising committee, Sebastian Coe, finished by saying "when the time came, we did it right."
What kind of systems have been put to work to listen and protect the whistle-blowers?
The role of whistle-blowers has always been difficult in the anti-doping world because athletes are often very reluctant to complain about other athletes that are competing against them in the same sport. To try to make that system better, when we increased our intelligence and investigations department, we created a separate department which would deal with anybody who wants to come to us as a whistle-blower that is called "Speak up". We have arrangements in place, that their names will not become public unless they ask for it and that the information that they provide is investigated. Then we pass the result of the investigation to their country or their sport. Several hundred people have been in touch and we have been able to help them.
How do you see the future of anti-doping testing?
We spend reasonable amounts of money, not as much as we should, on anti-doping research. The current system of analysing urine is time consuming, quite complicated and expensive. We have made some major improvements by introducing the athlete biological passport (ABP). The blood test system is better and in fact it was hugely influential in stopping organised cheating in Russia because they couldn't beat the ABP system. If we could get dry blood (DBS) to be as effective then we could improve testing and we're excited about it. But the ultimate solution here is to educate young people and that it has to go into the national education system. It should be in the physical education programme in schools, to be straight forward, and give them the message of "do not cheat".
What do you think about jail sentences for doping users?
In the WADA we work very hard to produce a list of sanctions going up to a maximum of four years for a first serious offence, eight years after and then even for life. These are sporting sanctions and when we put them into the code we take very detailed legal advice. There is a legal convention that the punishment should be in proportion to the crime. If you decide to shoot your worst enemy in his head, the chances are you will end up in jail. If however you decide to put a needle in your arm and inject some EPO, maybe you don't need a criminal sanction, maybe a sports sanction is sufficient. We are not in favour of criminal sanctions.
Sir Craig Reedie, former WADA president and IOC member, was a guest at the AIPS e-College on Thursday, April 30, where he discussed doping in sports with the young reporters. During the meeting, he talked about the creation of the anti-doping organisation and different aspects of the past and the future in the fight against the use of illegal substances in sports, including how to tackle the current state of doping during the coronavirus lockdown.
Reedie has played an important part in many aspects in the world of sports: first by turning badminton into an Olympic sport as head of its international federation and then as member of the board of the organising committee of the Games of London 2012, before moving to his roles at the IOC and the WADA.
CREATION OF WADA. “The WADA was formed in 1999 to bring together the sports movements and the governments of the world. The catalyst for doing that was an incident in the Tour de France 1998, when French police stopped the race, checked all the accompanying vehicles and found out that they were full of prohibited substances and drugs. This was a situation that sports was finding difficult to control so we needed to have an alliance with governments to make it more efficient.”
Soon after, a meeting in Lausanne in 1999 saw the birth of the organisation, which was set to fight doping use in sports along with governments and find a common ground for punishments across every discipline and for all professional athletes. “Before WADA was formed, it could be that a cyclist was suspended for competition in Denmark but he could ride in France and in Germany. Equally, for a particular doping offence a cyclist would be sanctioned for a period of three months, at the same time a rower who had committed the same offence and with the same drug would be banned for life. In situations like this it was seen that an organisation like WADA would potentially be a good move.”
CHALLENGES OF WADA: The organisation sets the rules in the battle against the use of illegal substances, but governments and sports also have the work in reinforcing them. “We set the rules and other people adhere to them. That's how the system works, it is a very important part of sports organisations operations, it is becoming a very important part of the recognition of the problem from governments, who don't believe that it's a very good idea that their athletes cheat.”
“The testing is done by anti-doping organisations run by countries or run by sports. They do it under international standards. The international standards of proper testing are done under some rules that are written by WADA and passed by WADA, where there are I think 17 sports representatives on the board. Everybody signs up to the same set of rules and we have to enforce them and look after them.”
RUSSIAN AFFAIR: From 2010, voices from Russia began to talk about a state-sponsored doping programme but it wasn't until 2014, when investigative reporter Hajo Seppelt uncovered an alleged system of illegal substances led by the Russian government, that an inquiry was launched. An investigation of WADA confirmed the accusations, and this led to the removal of 111 athletes from the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, a ban of the Russian team from the 2016 Summer Paralympics, and a potential total exclusion for the Tokyo 2020 Games, which is still being appealed at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
“The Russian situation became acute because there was more understanding of the problems. That gained publicity from the media, from ARD in Germany in 2014 who produced a report with evidence from Russian whistle-blowers that there had been rampant cheating in the sport of track and field athletics in Russia. We established an inquiry commission, we actually didn't have the legal power to do that until the world anti-doping code was changed on the first of January 2015. Then our commission began to work to confirm the ARD story that there had been a huge cheating in track and field athletics in Russia. Then it transpired that there had been major cheating in many other sports in the country.
“While trying to solve the Russian problem by rebuilding their national anti-doping organisation (RUSADA) - which was turned from being completely ineffective to being very effective - one of the conditions to be compliant was broken by Russian officials. Particularly we needed access to the Moscow laboratory to look at the data and the samples held there and we got the huge surprise and great disappointment that Russian authorities had been tampering with the data. Hence the decision that the sports of the country will be penalised in major ways for a period of four years. The one major exception is that the sanctions will not apply to athletes that can prove that they have a clean doping record. But if they take part in competition, they will not take part officially as a Russian delegation.”
LOCKDOWN AND DOPING
Reedie admitted his concern about the dark times of lockdown. “The testing programmes for all athletes have not come to a complete hold but are in a much more limited level of activity and therefore I have to be cynical and say that some people will cheat. The challenge is what to do when this finishes, and when doping officials can get access to athletes,” he said.
And he went further on: “I think anybody who decides to cheat is taking the risk for a number of reasons. First of all, there is now a much greater degree of intelligence within WADA and other anti-doping organisations about where the cheats come from, geographically where they are and other aspects of intelligence. Secondly, we are smarter than we were before, we are now better in laboratory examinations, we've got a comprehensive list of prohibited substances and I also think, hopefully there is some understanding that if the 2020 Games are going ahead it is very important for sports that people behave. Most athletes in my view are clean, some are not. Lastly, we will store samples for a long period and as soon as science gets better we will retest them so anyone who cheats may well be caught.”
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
What do you think about people that have been involved in the past in doping and that currently work with sports and athletes?
The situation from WADA's point of view is quite clear. We have a rule in the world anti-doping code on prohibited association. We list the names of coaches, doctors and whoever who have committed offences and we say to athletes: “you should have nothing to do with these people.” Very few athletes dope on their own, there's always somebody else involved. Whether it is a doctor, or a coach, or an agent or a parent even. Very few people do it on their own. All this depends on communication, the list of people with prohibited association problems needs to be known and needs to be known from the authorities in the country, that's more effective.
You have been knighted by the Queen, were in the organising committee of the Olympic Games of London 2012 and were president of WADA, among other things. For you, which has been your more important achievement?
There is always a personal pleasure to go to Buckingham palace and be part of the honour parties there. But there are a few other moments in my life that are important. One was in the IOC session in East Berlin in 1985 when Juan Antonio Samaranch (then president of the committee) announced that badminton, my sport, would become an Olympic programme sport and that meant that it has developed all around the world in a marvellous way. The second one was in Singapore in 2005 when Jacques Rogge opened the envelope and said 'the games of 2012 are awarded to the city of London', I had set up the bidding committee. And a particular moment that I will always remember was the closing ceremony of the Paralympics in London when the chairman of our organising committee, Sebastian Coe, finished by saying "when the time came, we did it right."
What kind of systems have been put to work to listen and protect the whistle-blowers?
The role of whistle-blowers has always been difficult in the anti-doping world because athletes are often very reluctant to complain about other athletes that are competing against them in the same sport. To try to make that system better, when we increased our intelligence and investigations department, we created a separate department which would deal with anybody who wants to come to us as a whistle-blower that is called "Speak up". We have arrangements in place, that their names will not become public unless they ask for it and that the information that they provide is investigated. Then we pass the result of the investigation to their country or their sport. Several hundred people have been in touch and we have been able to help them.
How do you see the future of anti-doping testing?
We spend reasonable amounts of money, not as much as we should, on anti-doping research. The current system of analysing urine is time consuming, quite complicated and expensive. We have made some major improvements by introducing the athlete biological passport (ABP). The blood test system is better and in fact it was hugely influential in stopping organised cheating in Russia because they couldn't beat the ABP system. If we could get dry blood (DBS) to be as effective then we could improve testing and we're excited about it. But the ultimate solution here is to educate young people and that it has to go into the national education system. It should be in the physical education programme in schools, to be straight forward, and give them the message of "do not cheat".
What do you think about jail sentences for doping users?
In the WADA we work very hard to produce a list of sanctions going up to a maximum of four years for a first serious offence, eight years after and then even for life. These are sporting sanctions and when we put them into the code we take very detailed legal advice. There is a legal convention that the punishment should be in proportion to the crime. If you decide to shoot your worst enemy in his head, the chances are you will end up in jail. If however you decide to put a needle in your arm and inject some EPO, maybe you don't need a criminal sanction, maybe a sports sanction is sufficient. We are not in favour of criminal sanctions.
News from the same category
.jpg)
.jpg)
