In the wake of the revelations of widespread doping in Russia in a German TV documentary (read a transcript here), World and Olympic champion Robert Harting writes in an article in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that he sees the cautious reaction by the IAAF to the documentary as an affront to all clean athletes and the actions by WADA as a complete failure of the world anti-doping body.
The outspoken discus thrower says he has observed drastic changes in other athletes which suggest these athletes are using prohibited substances. But he does not want to name anyone out of fear that he could himself become the victim of what he calls a ‘doping attack.’ Harting points out that if it is so easy to cover up a doping case, it is just as easy to create one out of nothing. He has no proof that this has happened before, but sees it as a real threat, and he knows that the anti-doping system would not able to protect falsely accused innocent athletes.
Harting criticises the current anti-doping system as too complex and says elite athletes have no choice but to submit to this system, renounce their basic human rights to privacy, and put up with the blanket accusation of being guilty unless they prove themselves innocent. Harting is happy to endure these intrusions of the current anti-doping regime but laments the apparent fact that controls don’t even happen in other countries. Harting criticises the protectionist attitude of the IAAF towards the million-dollar sprint heroes, where even the president himself has practically guaranteed that the best is clean. This, he says, can only be interpreted as meaning that “an athlete of such extraordinary significance must never be tested positive.”
Harting proposes the establishment of an international anti-doping fund as well as a new international control pools. He envisages this as follows: For instance, China, France, Brasil, Canada und Ukraine would belong to a testing pool. Control officers from China could use diplomatic passports to enter France to carry out tests there whilst French control officers would test Brazilian athletes. The Brazilians would test in Canada, etc. Every two years the testing pools would be randomly re-allocated. Also, sports federations would not be allowed to test their own athletes. Doping laboratories are not to be funded by countries’ governments. Countries which don’t participate to this new anti-doping regime should simply be banned.
Also, in a recent interview with Frankfurther Allgemeine Zeitung, the protagonist of the German TV documentary, Yuliya Stepanova, said that neither the IAAF nor WADA, which are supposedly investigating the allegations made in the program, have so far contacted her to supply additional information and material. She described WADA as a toothless tiger.
I think Robert Harting is on to something. It is increasingly obvious that the current system just isn’t working.