Betraying the athletes
There are so many reasons to cherish Olympic sport. It’s full of men and women whose biggest moments come, not through multi-million-dollar contracts, but from wearing a national uniform and challenging themselves, often in relatively obscure events, against similarly minded athletes from around the world.
But time and time again these athletes — and by extension Olympic fans — have been let down by officials, sport federations and regulatory bodies that are supposed to have their best interests at heart.
The latest example comes from the World Anti-Doping Agency. WADA has set the table to reinstate Russia’s antidoping agency later this week, even though Russia has not done the work to earn that.
Russia, let’s recall, was exposed for running a state-sponsored doping regime for its athletes and thwarting the global drug-testing system as far back as 2011, and was (mostly) banned from the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Russia is a major player in a great many sports so it’s easy to see some sport leaders want to find a way to move on.
Trouble is, Russia hasn’t met two basic and completely reasonable demands that WADA itself asked for. It has not accepted the findings of a report by Canadian Richard McLaren, which would mean admitting state involvement in the doping scheme, or granted access to Moscow’s anti-doping laboratory.
But on Friday, WADA’s compliance review committee suddenly decided it was enough for Russia to accept another report’s findings, which wasn’t nearly as explicit about the government’s involvement, and commit to, someday, turning over data and doping samples from the lab.
That’s not a true admission of guilt. It’s little more than a hope Russia that has learned its lesson and a promise that it will be more compliant in the future. Little wonder athletes are outraged, including Canada’s Beckie Scott who resigned her position on WADA’s review committee in protest.
Clean athletes have, once again, been betrayed by a system that is doing far too little to ensure a level playing field. If this plays out as now expected on Thursday, with WADA’s executive accepting the committee’s recommendations, it will be another terrible day for Olympic sport.
In essence, this was a game of chicken and WADA gave way before the stakes became high enough for Russia to do so. And, as always, it’s clean athletes and the image of Olympic sport that will suffer.