State Duma deputy Svishchev announced the need to reform WADA
Russia has long been talking about the need to reform the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), said the head of the State Duma Committee on Physical Culture and Sports, Dmitry Svishchev. So, in a conversation with Lenta.ru, the deputy spoke about the indignation of the United States by WADA’s decision not to suspend swimmers from China convicted of doping.
“Sometimes Americans have sensible thoughts. A one-sided vision of the situation, assessment based on nationality, bias, bias – these things have been characteristic of WADA in recent years. We see how many contradictory decisions WADA makes in relation to athletes. Today, even the Americans were outraged by the situation with the Chinese swimmers,” said Svishchev.
At the same time, the deputy said that WADA decided to support the Chinese athletes, although the Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva was suspended for exactly the same drug.
“The reason, it seems to me, is clear. WADA is not independent in making decisions. WADA is now ruled by officials who are not always even related to sports. There are also sponsors and advertisers. Now we see that the situation at WADA is getting out of control,” he added.
I hope that the world sports community will hear and draw the right conclusions, and the future leadership of WADA should be based on the principles of equality of all athletes from all countries of the world
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Earlier, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) made a statement on the situation with swimmers from China caught doping. USADA called on governments and the sports movement to reconsider WADA’s activities. The American side also demanded to consider the issue of sanctions against the Chinese convicted of doping.
On April 20, it was reported that 23 Chinese swimmers were caught doping with trimetazidine and were allowed to participate in the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. It was clarified that the Chinese Anti-Doping Agency conducted an investigation during which it was determined that traces of the drug were found in the kitchen of the hotel where the athletes stayed during the competition. WADA explained that they had no reason to doubt the objectivity of the Chinese side’s conclusions and punish the athletes.
Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva was disqualified for four years for using the doping trimetazidine. Traces of it were found in the skater’s sample from December 2021. As a result, she was stripped of her gold for winning the team tournament at the 2022 Olympics, as well as her Russian and European titles.
Source: Lenta
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