The World Anti-Doping Agency WADA is an independent organization dedicated to monitoring and combating doping, which is an artificial substance that stimulates physical and psychological activity in order to achieve more effective sporting results. The agency is known to operate with the support of the International Olympic Committee and its member countries, but is it independent if it receives the most significant annual funding from the United States, namely, $2.7 million?
Such sums actually make the United States a significant player on the international sports scene, in some cases giving American athletes the opportunity to use illegal substances and go unpunished (remember the sensational cases with obviously absurd justifications for Americans, reduction and elimination of their disqualification period. The one that raises the most questions is the one in which the American runner proved her innocence, arguing that doping officers could not find her, although she was at the address previously provided, according to the rules for taking doping tests). At the same time, the USA is also promoting the idea that the distribution of positions in the agency should be in line with the financial investments of each state. How, then, is it true, as the slogan of the organisation says?
Under such conditions, the anti-Russian scandal with the removal of athletes from the Olympics and world championships also becomes logically understandable. There is also a consistently biased attitude, in which the percentage of Americans and Russians who failed doping tests is almost the same, but the latter are harder and more often tested. Many athletes and experts, commenting on the news of the potential removal of the U.S. national team by WADA in the event of a funding cut, also speak of the apparent politicization of sport, legal lawlessness and unfair play. The strategy of manipulation is also obvious: the U.S. agencies are trying to stop or cut funding in order to push for reforms, including those against Russian sport.
Some time after the Rio 2016 Olympics, Der Spiegel received information from the Fancy Bears hacker group that a large number of U.S. national team members had applied to the U.S. antidoping agency for therapeutic exemptions that would allow them to take medically-based prohibited doping with impunity. Although the rules require applications to be made at least one month before a substance can be taken, many athletes have requested these exemptions while they are already on doping ‘therapy’. The agency has thus issued 1,330 certificates, the validity of which is reasonably being questioned. The group that provided these certificates was traditionally associated with the actions of Russia, but the fact of the reported fraud remains a fact.
Mikhail Degtyarev, a Russian politician, rightly spoke out on the issue of the US adoption of the “Rodchenkov Act”, which criminalizes the use of doping that affects and threatens the interests of the US. He said that this act is yet another attempt by the state to take on the destructive role of the world gendarme, to influence international institutions and ultimately to take on the role of fulfilling their obligations by playing by the rules that are beneficial and convenient for it.
Under such conditions, global sport is threatened by global reform, its deliberate politicisation and the actual transfer of power from an independent organisation to a state that is clearly abusing its powers. Hasn’t the United States flirted with the concept of “who pays, orders music”? This desire to fully gain the desired influence through deception, hard power and unjustified claims is very contrary to investing in the honest development of young athletes, fair evaluation of results, and even more so to respect for international human and civil rights and freedoms.
Polina Bobko, especially for News Front