Long doping shadow: The case of the Russian Kamila Valieva is still unsolved – also a consequence of the war.
Photo: imago/Ramil Sitdikov
Sometimes politicians bring a breath of fresh air to sport. In his welcome speech for the traditional symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency WADA in Lausanne, the politician Philippe Leuba, who was delegated by the cantonal government, said that Russia had broken the Olympic Truce with its attack on Ukraine. He called for reactions from the world of sport. He even managed to bridge the gap to the anti-doping business. “Sport can make the world better, but only clean sport can shape the world of tomorrow for mankind,” said Leuba. Of course, it was just a Sunday political speech, delivered on a Saturday. But she pointed out the great symbolic impact world sport can have.
The men – and a few women – who climbed into the Bütt after him only had smaller rolls in their rhetorical luggage. WADA President Witold Banka and Secretary General Olivier Niggli praised the work of the internal reform commissions in particular. Sure, they made a difference. Athlete representation in Wada committees has been expanded. Also interesting is the installation of an ethics commission, which is supposed to investigate misconduct by Wada officials and, if necessary, sanction them.
The case of Tamas Ajan made headlines a few years ago. The sports official from Hungary was, among other things, a co-founder of the World Anti-Doping Agency and sat on its board of trustees for almost two decades. As a strong man of the International Weightlifting Federation, which he led for 45 years first as Secretary General and later as President, he organized cover-ups of doping tests. At least that became clear in an investigation by the US anti-doping agency Usada. At the height of the allegations, Ajan simply retired – and could not be prosecuted. This gap is now closed. And one can only hope that the existence of the ethics committee will act as a deterrent.
In its actual field, the fight against doping, Wada achieves only moderate success. The rate of positive tests is still below the one percent mark. This may also be due to the fact that, according to President Banka, the research budget has shrunk from $6.6 million to less than two million recently. For the coming years, however, Banka announced an increase of up to 4.5 million dollars. That’s not much for your own research programs either.
After all, Secretary General Niggli was able to record as a success that the scope of the controls after the pandemic-related slump in March and April 2020 was almost reached again in October of the same year compared to the figures for 2019. Since March 2021, the number of training controls has regularly exceeded the values from before Corona. So the quantity was right, at least in the closer preparation phase for the Olympic Games.
The situation of Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva is still unclear. A test she took in December 2021 was positive when analyzed six weeks later during the Winter Olympics. After a long legal wrangling, she was allowed to stay in the competition. As a minor, she is considered a “protected person” according to the Wada Code and can therefore be sanctioned less harshly. However, the examination of the athlete’s environment for complicity in the doping case requested by Wada has stalled.
This is also an effect of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. Because the contacts between the World Anti-Doping Agency and the Russian agency Rusada, which were already strained because of the doping scandal of 2016, are even more sporadic due to the war. Niggli assured that channels of communication were still open. However, the next round of reviews of Rusada’s reform efforts can only take place via video conference. When asked by »nd«, Niggli assured: »The doping control system in Russia is still effective. Rusada takes samples from athletes even if they are not allowed to compete internationally. The analyzes are mainly carried out in the laboratory in Turkey. Flights to Turkey continue. Payments can also be instructed.«
So Russian athletes do not fall into a control gap. This is even more true for Ukrainian athletes. The anti-doping system there fell into disrepute last fall as a result of »Operation Hercules«. The investigation, launched by Wada’s investigative unit, found that Ukrainian athletes were repeatedly warned about doping tests and that samples were mislabeled, resulting in a reduced number of analyses. These analyzes were repeated later with negative results. But the suspicion of manipulation could not be dispelled.
Banka pointed out during the symposium that Ukrainian athletes who train abroad are now also being tested there. “We wrote to 19 national doping agencies asking them to include Ukrainian athletes living there in their testing pools and we received positive replies from all 19. Some international sports associations are also currently testing athletes from Ukraine,” emphasized the Wada President. A glimmer of civil normality in this war – and the hope that at least this control gap has been closed.
