Anti-Doping Investigation Widens In Cycling, Other World Sports
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) may offer cyclists immunity to testify in an inquisition about the sport’s dirty drug-tainted past.
WADA President John Fahey told reporters following an organization meeting Friday that they would confer offers of immunity to cyclists on an individual basis, excluding such notables as former Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong, who was stripped last year of seven victories and one third-place finish after losing a long battle with the agency.
Disappointing fans and vindicating critics, Armstrong received a lifetime ban from the sport and subsequently withdrew from leadership of the Livestrong Foundation, the cancer research organization formerly bearing his name. Since then, Armstrong’s admission in January of illicit sports doping — heavy on self-righteous justifications — has failed to impress anti-doping authorities.
“What is concluded is concluded,” Fahey said, referring to last year’s decision on Armstrong, according to ESPN. The cyclist had been expected to seek to a reduction in his lifetime ban from organized sports in return for cooperating with an investigation by the International Cycling Union (UCI) into illicit doping. However, UCI President Brian Cookson dismissed rumors that authorities would grant Armstrong any favors in return for testimony.
WADA and UCI said jointly Friday that they both agreed on “the broad terms under which the UCI will conduct a commission of inquiry into the historical doping problems in cycling.”
However, WADA is also investigating irregularities with its doping laboratory in Russia, just a few months ahead of the Winter Olympics. The agency has established a committee to investigate issues with its laboratory in Moscow, Fahey told the Associated Press, with a report expected in the “not too distant future.”
In a statement from the authority, WADA had some advice for the International Olympic Commission. “While WADA is not the responsible medical authority during the period of the Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, [Russia], WADA strongly suggests the IOC consider appropriate action, including the appointment of necessary experts, to ensure the complete integrity of all analysis performed by the Moscow laboratory operating Moscow and/or in the satellite facility in Sochi.”
Earlier, WADA had pulled the accreditation of its Brazilian laboratory testing samples for next year’s World Cup, with additional concerns about testing in Jamaica and Kenya. WADA was reportedly satisfied, however, that Jamaica’s government would work with the Jamaican Anti-Doping Commission to make necessary improvements to its drug-testing program, which saw problems in the weeks prior to last year’s Summer Olympics in London.
In Kenya, WADA is investigating accusations of systemic doping among athletes training for world-class competitions.