Doping

RUSADA descends even more into farce

probstjoerg Doping

Can this situation get any more farcical? RUSADA, the Russian anti-doping agency is now headed by just-retired pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva. I recall cheering Isinbayeva on when she set her last world record in Zürich in 2009, but this appointment is hardly anything to cheer about.

This appointment is yet another example of bad governance in sport. Can the Russians really not see the potential conflicts of interest here? Isinbayeva is currently a member of the IAAF Athletes’ Commission, and she has also just started an 8-year term on the IOC Athletes’ Commission (note that she received quite a few “no”-votes, unlike the other elected athletes). As now head of RUSADA she should give up both these posts, even if they are of a non-executive nature. It’s is also the perception that counts. But perhaps perception of a different kind is what the Russians are after: According to the USA Today report, she will head RUSADA as part of a “10-person board including sports executives, academics, and a Russian sports ministry official.” I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking, and I mean no offence to her personally, that Isinbayeva is being used here by RUSADA to serve as a marionette. The announcement is of course impeccably timed as we await with bated breath the final McLaren report.

A new chapter in the Russian doping saga

probstjoerg Doping

Can this situation get any more farcical? RUSADA, the Russian anti-doping agency is now headed by just-retired pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva. I recall cheering Isinbayeva on when she set her last world record in Zürich in 2009, but this appointment is hardly anything to cheer about.

This appointment is yet another example of bad governance in sport. Can the Russians really not see the potential conflicts of interest here? Isinbayeva is currently a member of the IAAF Athletes’ Commission, and she has also just started an 8-year term on the IOC Athletes’ Commission (note that she received quite a few “no”-votes, unlike the other elected athletes). As now head of RUSADA she should give up both these posts, even if they are of a non-executive nature. It’s is also the perception that counts. But perhaps perception of a different kind is what the Russians are after. According to the USA Today report, she will head RUSADA as part of a “10-person board including sports executives, academics, and a Russian sports ministry official.” I can’t help thinking, and I mean no offence to her personally, that Isinbayeva is being used here by RUSADA to serve as a marionette. The announcement is of course impeccably timed as we await with bated breath the final McLaren report. 

Harting has lost faith in toothless tiger WADA

probstjoerg Blog, Doping ,

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.

Read more

How Russia makes champions

probstjoerg Blog, Doping

I was flabbergasted after watching the sobering documentary by German investigative journalist Hajo Seppelt on the goings-on in the Russian sport system – widespread doping practices by athletes, coaches and physicians – condoned, supported and organised even, by the Russian anti-doping agency and the government itself.

My unofficial translation of the program has been posted by Athletics Illustrated here.

Read more

No use running from the law

probstjoerg Blog, Doping

It wasn’t widely reported in the media, so I thought it is worth mentioning here a fairly recent decision by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal of Australia (AATA), which confirmed a decision by the Anti-Doping Rule Violation Panel to enter a Victorian professional runner in its Register of Findings after coming to the conclusion that the athlete had committed an anti-doping rule violation by refusing to submit to a doping test back in February 2011.

The sprinter was identified and approached by an ASADA official at Melbourne Olympic Park, but the athlete refused to give a urine and blood sample and left the venue. He later applied to the AATA to have the decision by the Anti-Doping Rule Violation Panel reversed, denying that he was at the venue at the time ASADA tried to test him. The Panel wasn’t impressed by his testimony, to say the least, and affirmed the decision.

Zoltan Kövago banned

probstjoerg Blog, Discus, Doping

Seasoned Hungarian discus thrower Zoltan Kövago has been found guilty of  a doping offence and will miss the Olympics.

The Hungarian association had exonerated Kövago after he failed to submit to a doping test on 11 August 2011, but the IAAF was successful in an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), and the thrower has now been banned for two years, presumably backdated to the date of the offence.

This post will be updated once the Court publishes its reasons.