WADA still at odds with cycling and soccer
By VeloNews Interactive
Copyright AFP2004
The international governing bodies of soccer and cycling remain the two most prominent and vocal holdouts when it comes to embracing new anti-doping rules the World Anti-Doping Agency suggested on Thursday.
Four of the 28 summer Olympic sports, notably football and cycling, have still not accepted the world anti-doping code, the cornerstone of the fight against perfomance-enhancing drugs in sport, WADA officials said during a media seminar in Lausanne, Switzerland. Soccer's world governing body FIFA still has qualms about two-year doping bans despite its announcement that it is ready to sign up to global rules by May, the officials noted.
WADA officials said they continue to slowly broaden the anti-doping effort but were still struggling to gain wider acceptance for harmonized global rules, just seven months before the start of the Olympic Games in Athens, the deadline for acceptance of the code. The International Basketball Association (FIBA), for example, signed its formal acceptance of the world anti doping code to WADA in Lausanne Thursday.
While only procedural delays are holding up approval by badminton and volleyball until April or May, FIFA and the Union Cycliste International still object to some of the rules, especially the levels of sanctions - including a minimum two-year ban for first offenders - WADA chairman Dick Pound said. Both governing bodies insisted the world anti-doping code allowed a statutory two-year international penalty for a first offense to be reduced if athletes were able to prove "exceptional circumstances."
"We have no difference in principle on this," said Pound a day after he reached an accord with FIFA president Sepp Blatter paving the way for world football to join the code in time for the Athens Games.
But WADA warned it was ready to wield its powers this year if it felt that doping sanctions taken by international federations were not up to par.
"We have the authority and responsibility of challenging and appealing any decision to the Court of Arbitration of Sport. Our task will be to look at any decision that deviates from the code." said David Howman, WADA director general.
The code recognizes only two instances where the two year penalty for a doping offense can be reduced: if athletes can prove that they took a substance inadvertently, or if they showed there was "no significant fault", according to WADA officials. That outlook appears to be narrower than FIFA's.
"As a first step, I'm very confident," Pound said of the "road map" set out with FIFA on Monday. He expected it would take another two years for the system of penalties to come into full swing.
Pound hit out at UCI chief Hein Verbruggen this week in an interview in Le Monde.
"They know Tour de France cyclists and others have been taking prohibited substances," Pond told Le Monde. "It's the same thing in the United States with American football."
But officials suggested Thursday that with more than 85 percent of Olympic governing bodies now accepting the code, no federation could afford to turn up in Athens without being fully in compliance with WADA policy.
"This will be the first major event, a major stage where the anti-doping code will be in place," Howman said.
Pointing to the pioneering roles both sports have played in the history of anti-doping - they were the first to introduce drug tests in 1966 - Pound was confident both would sign up in time.
WADA is also waiting for governments to sign up to an international convention against doping by 2006, a key step to make doping tests and other measures legally enforceable in some countries. It also complained that funding for the agency from governments and Olympic movement was still short of target.
WADA was created in 1999 at the end of an international conference on doping called after the infamous Festina scandal tore apart the 1998 Tour de France. Even at that initial conference, cycling and soccer were the most vocal opponents of the WADA approach to testing and penalties.