IOC Calls for Meeting with WADA and McLaren

(ATR) The IOC’s independent drug testing authority is unlikely to be fully in place by the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.

A declaration of the IOC Executive Board meeting in PyeongChang Thursday revealed more details about president Thomas Bach’s ambitions for the body as part of an overhaul of global anti-doping. First mooted at the Olympic Summit in October 2015, Bach wanted it to be operational by the 2018 Games.

But IOC spokesman Mark Adams suggested today it probably won’t.

"We would like to see us moving forward towards this new system that we propose here with these principles," he told reporters.

"However what we have also said is that by PyeongChang, whatever happens, the IOC will have independent testing and sanctioning. In Rio we had independent sanctioning by CAS.

"Independent of whether we can bring the whole system together in time we will do it for the [2018] Olympic Games," Adams added, hinting that the development of the new Independent Testing Authority (ITA) has some way to go.

Bach has written to WADA president Craig Reedie and professor Richard McLaren, the Canadian lawyer behind two explosive reports on state-sponsored doping in Russia.

Adams said they had been invited to Lausanne at their "earliest convenience" to discuss the way forward, "based on our proposals and to hear what they have to say as well".

"We need to move on as quickly as we can."

The IOC has already spent $2.8 million on reanalyzing doping samples and the work of its two commissions following McLaren’s two reports, Adams said.

The IOC released plans Thursday for a "more robust and independent" global anti-doping system. Some of the proposals build on previously released proposals.

As part of strengthening WADA, the IOC’s executive board has restated that the agency must be independent from both sports organizations and national interests.

The IOC is insisting that sporting bodies and the governments should be represented equally on the WADA Foundation Board and executive committee. Bach and his top team want WADA to have a "neutral president and vice president who have no function in any government or governmental organization or in any sports organization".

Fleshing out proposals for the Independent Testing Authority, the IOC said it would be responsible for developing with each respective international federation an "international test distribution plan (ITDP) not only by sport but by discipline".

This would contain a minimum number of tests for every athlete wanting to participate in the World Championships or Olympics. This number would be transparent for each athlete in a discipline of a sport.

Athletes not having the established minimum testing level would not to be eligible to participate in world championships or the Olympics.

National anti-doping bodies would execute the international tests on request by the ITA.

The IOC wants the ITA board to be restricted to a supervisory role only with "no power to direct or instruct the management of the anti-doping program" – and that board should include representatives from public authorities, the Olympic Movement and WADA as well as elected athlete representatives.

Following a case established by the ITA, sanctioning of individuals or of a WADA code signatory would be determined by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Reported by Mark Bisson

25 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribers only.