Adams’ views
Shot put star dismayed at Wada decision that ‘protects crims more than victims’
Dame Valerie Adams has added her voice to the debate whether the World Anti-Doping Agency should have welcomed Russia back into the international sporting fold last month.
Adams revealed her views in an interview with NZME in which the shot putter announced she and husband Gabriel Price are expecting their second child in April.
The double Olympic champion said the timeline offers her the best opportunity to recover and compete for selection to a fifth Games in Tokyo before she retires.
The couple’s first child, daughter Kimoana, celebrated her first birthday last week.
While Adams celebrated the pregnancy, she was less thrilled by Wada’s decision to embrace a nation tainted by systemic sports cheating.
On a 9-2 vote in the Seychelles, Wada’s executive committee declared their Russian arm as having satisfied conditions of reinstatement.
That meant accepting findings from the McLaren report that concluded the government had orchestrated the doping scandal to win Sochi Olympic medals.
It also involved Russia agreeing to hand over data and samples to confirm potential doping violations from the time.
However, correspondence between Wada leaders and Russia’s sports minister showed appeasement at work on how to negotiate an exit.
The decision prompted former Wada director-general David Howman to say he was now a cynical pessimist rather than a cynical optimist about doping in sport.
The International Olympic Committee forms half of the Wada board.
Adams, in her role as deputy chairperson of the IAAF athletes’ commission, said it was a case where “crims were protected more than the victims”.
Adams should know, having suffered her share of career hardships because of doping.
There was the indignity of “losing” to Belarusian drug cheat Nadzheya Ostapchuk at the 2012 London Olympics. Adams accepted silver but eventually received gold at a ceremony in Auckland.
Also, as a 19-year-old at her maiden Games in Athens in 2004, she missed the top eight and the opportunity for three more attempts. Four of those ahead of her have since received doping bans.
Despite once reigning unbeaten for 107 consecutive international meets across eight years, nine months and 17 days, Adams’ personal best of 21.24m ranks her 23rd on the all-time distance list, 1.39m adrift of the world record set in 1987.
“We have worked strongly among ourselves to ensure athlete voices are heard,” she said. “We hope Wada backs clean countries because it’s a difficult situation and we won’t stop fighting until we get answers.”
Adams was asked if there was a sense of betrayal with Russia coming
Why is anybody bothering to keep clean and do it right when [Wada] is helping them [the drug cheats] rather than you? Valerie Adams
back into elite sport without enough evidence of compliance.
“Russia was given a list to complete and haven’t done so. They’ve been let back in too easy, so why do we have a system in place which doesn’t protect those who need it?
“We have to get the voices of the athletes out there because sometimes we’re not heard against these powerful people — yet we’re a force in numbers.”
Adams felt there was solidarity among athletes for a common cause.
“But that’s been made harder by Wada, who by letting them [Russia] back in before they’ve served their time, meant there were no repercussions.
“Why is anybody bothering to keep clean and do it right when this organisation [Wada] is helping them rather than you?”