Debacle in anti-doping
Less than a week before the Winter Olympic Games open in South Korea, no doubt at least some Olympic athletes plan to compete in Pyeongchang with an edge unfairly gained through their use of illegal substances.
Such cheating is corrosive, of course, for it ultimately undermines the credibility of competition — whether as participant or spectator — for both athletes who don’t dope and the vast majority of sports fans who desire a level playing field.
Now, on the eve of the Games, the International Olympic Committee’s already tarnished reputation as a supposed champion of clean sports is in tatters.
On Thursday, the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland — an international, independent body for arbitration and mediation in sport — threw out lifetime Olympic bans imposed on 39 Russian athletes by the IOC in December for alleged doping violations at the 2014 Sochi Games.
The CAS lifted all sanctions against 28 athletes due to “insufficient evi- dence.” Eleven other Russian athletes were found to have cheated, but the CAS reduced their bans to just the 2018 Games.
Reaction was swift.
“Clean athletes and sports fans around the world have lost confidence in the system,” said Linda Helleland, vice-president of the World Anti-doping Agency. “The situation is untenable.”
Critics, including the U.S. AntiDoping Agency, blasted the IOC for its lengthy 18-month, convoluted handling of the situation. A 2016 WADA report had detailed the existence of a Russian state-directed doping system designed to boost their athletes’ performances with illegal drugs and to undercut anti-doping measures by tampering with samples.
Nevertheless, it took until just two months before the Pyeongchang Games for the IOC to take action.
The IOC also came under fire for allowing 169 Russian athletes to compete in South Korea as “Olympic athletes from Russia” despite having banned Russia from competing as a country.
The IOC says it may appeal the CAS ruling to Switzerland’s Supreme Court. To be fair, it’s odd the court wouldn’t pass judgment on whether there was an organized scheme to cheat, only ruling on whether there was legally enough evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, against individual athletes to merit sanction.
That the Russians were cheating is obvious. To be fair, they’ve hardly been the only ones, though the scale of their systemic abuse of the rules was audacious.
But now the cause of cleaning up sport has taken a massive hit along with the IOC’S reputation. The danger is that some clean athletes may wonder if it’s worth competing while cynicism and disinterest will only increase among sports fans.
The Olympic movement itself could ultimately be threatened. It’s up to the IOC, as its caretaker, to find a way to make credible doping charges — along with severe consequences — stick.