David Howman
Director General
World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)
In response to your article in the UK newspaper Daily Mail of March 1, 2012, I would like to take this opportunity to address a number of the criticisms that you directed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
Out of respect for legal procedure I will not discuss the case that the British Olympic Association has taken by way of appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) which is to be heard by a panel of arbitrators on March 12.
However, you make a number of accusations and assumptions which I believe need to be corrected, not simply because they are criticisms of WADA, but because they are inaccurate and do a disservice to the Agency and the anti-doping community worldwide.
1. You say that you do not want the UK to be “dragged down by the rest of the world” with regards to sanctions. Well, there is no such thing as the “rest of the world” in terms of anti-doping. There is one World Anti-Doping Code and that is the basis for the fight against doping in sport worldwide and creates the harmony that is absolutely necessary.
The UK sport bodies and UKAD follow those sanctions and the rest of the rules, and have done since the Code came into effect in 2003. The BOA has something extra, which over the 20 years it has been in place has affected 31 athletes of whom 28 have successfully appealed the ban.
The alternative would be to have anti-doping rules that vary from country to country, and sport to sport, which would be a return to the dark ages of anti-doping and a problem which existed during your time as an elite athlete.
It would result in athletes in different sports or from different countries receiving different bans for the same offences, and even worse athletes from the same sport receiving different penalties depending on the country they competed for. Indeed that was the very problem that led to the formation of WADA and the writing of a uniform Code.
To create the harmonization for all sports and all countries that we have is a huge international achievement, not replicated in any other walk of life. Currently, there are more than 650 signatories to the Code.
......What I can say is that testing is significantly more effective today than it was in your day, and significantly more effective today than it was 10 years ago. And if you were competing today I can guarantee that you would notice the difference; you would know that the athletes lining up alongside you are no longer able to abuse drugs with impunity.
http://www.wada-ama.org/en/News-Center/ ... mpson-CBE/