Sport Ireland among those calling for urgent Wada reform

The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) urgently needs reform in order to best serve clean athletes following the decision to reinstate Russia’s testing body, leaders of 18 national anti-doping organisations, including Sport Ireland, said on Monday.

The group met at an emergency summit in Paris following last month’s decision by Wada to reinstate the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (Rusada) which was suspended in 2015 after evidence of doping in Russian sport was published in the McLaren Report.

The lifting of Rusada’s ban opened a pathway for Russia to compete in international sport again, a possibility that has led to criticism from international athletes.

Speaking following the summit, Sport Ireland chief executive, John Treacy, said: "This was an important meeting for the global fight against doping in sport. It was our first since the shocking decision by Wada's executive committee to reinstate Russia, despite all of the criteria of Wada's own roadmap to compliance not being satisfied.

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“The views of athletes formed a large part of the meeting, and there was unanimous agreement that athletes should be supported and their concerns should be listened to by the decision makers in Wada.

“It is so important that athletes have a voice – at the end of the day, the athletes are the most important people in all of this. It is the athletes who are impacted by decisions taken by Wada and they should be central to all decisions made.”

A Wada governance group last week made recommendations to update the organisation of the body, but the national anti-doping agencies said these reforms did not go far enough.

“Given the athletes’ concerns in Wada’s decision-making and governance process, and after all that we have regrettably witnessed in the wake of the Russian doping crisis, Wada’s limited proposals for governance reform fall far short of what the world’s athletes and other champions of clean sport have been calling for these past two years, and there should be a rethink,” the anti-doping agency leaders said in a joint statement.

“We urge Wada not to repeat the mistakes it made in the process to reinstate Rusada, and to conduct its actions in a more transparent and open fashion.

“Wada will rise once again, but only when it embraces global athlete community concerns.”

Wada's leadership is set to change next year when president Craig Reedie steps down at the end of his second term in office.

The body has previously said failure to allow access to stored urine samples at the Moscow anti-doping laboratory by the year’s end would lead to a renewed ban for Rusada.

Wada’s governance group will present its recommendations to its foundation board at meetings in Baku, Azerbaijan, on November 15th.