The second part of the WADA (1) report into Drug Abuse by athletes will be made public in Munich on Thursday January 14, 2015 by Dick Pound, who led the investigation.
The three main issues in the Report are,
1) Athletes from several countries have been identified as drug users and have ilegally won prizes.
2) Sports Administrators worldwide (even in the IAAF) have illegally covered-up known Drug Abuse.
3) Tests to detect drug abuse at sports events, or on a random basis, are at present inefficient.
Since the publication of the first part of the WADA Report, some Athletes and Sports Administraors have been banned. Russia in particular, as a leading abuser in athletics, has been suspended.
However, there is still much which remains to be done and in other countries than Russia ! This means, in particular, that the IAAF has a last chance to get tough and ban or punish Administrators and trainers who are known to have abused their positions for personal profit !
This Blog has already regretted that Russia was suspended from International compétitions, because this hurts all sportmen or women, even those who are innocent and clean. Should the IAAF not immediately announce the systematic testing of all athletes at the next Olympic Games in RIO in August 2016 ?
Likewise, should WADA not supervise the testing of athletes before and after events ? The onus of ensuring that an athlete is "clean" should fall on each Country and each Athlete. Those who fail the test should be disqualified from all competitions and should not be reinstated until after a hearing !
At present the responsibilities are badly defined. Ultimately this must change. A new start, with new World Records in almost every event in RIO, could replace the rotten past. This would be a sensation in "sports mad" Brazil !
(1) WADA = World Anti Doping Agency
(2) IAAF = International Association of Athletics Federations
No comments:
Post a Comment