The Devon Kershaw Show (Audio Short): WADA, Russia, and FIS
FasterSkierDecember 20, 2019
To the point: thoughts and opinions on WADA’s decision to ban Russia from major international competitions for four years.
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More on the Russian Ban
Jason AlbertDecember 10, 2019
Widely reported on Monday was the unanimous vote by WADA’s Executive Committee (ExCo) to ban Russia from specific sport events for the next four years. Russia never tip-toed around its desire to dope on an industrial scale. That much has been documented in an Academy Award winning documentary and the more academic reports cataloging Russian doping misdeeds. Many have claimed Russia suffered a mere hand slap from WADA and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for its...
WADA Declares Four Year Ban on Russia
FasterSkierDecember 9, 2019
In an unanimous vote Monday in Lausanne, Switzerland, WADA’s Executive Committee imposed a four year ban on Russian participation in major international sporting events. This blanket ban includes the 2020 Tokyo and 2022 Beijing Olympics. The list of Russian transgressions is long. According to a press release from WADA on Monday, the tipping point was Russia’s manipulation of the Moscow Lab’s data. That data was to be used to confirm specific doping violations by Russian...
WADA’s Compliance Review Committee Recommends Strong Penalties for Russia
Jason AlbertNovember 25, 2019
In a just published press release, WADA has released its Compliance Review Committee’s (CRC) recommended consequences for RUSADA. On December 9, WADA’s Executive committee will decide upon’s RUSADA’s status as a compliant entity. Last week, the Compliance Review Committee suggested RUSADA again be declared non-compliant. Due to a leak of specific aspects of the Compliance Review Committee’s recommendations and sanctions, WADA has decided to publish the sanctions likely to be handed down on December 9....
Death, Taxes, and RUSADA Non-Compliance
Jason AlbertNovember 25, 2019
There’s death, taxes, and this: the Russian Anti-Doping is likely to be back on WADA’s non-compliance list. Last week, WADA sent out a press release noting that its Compliance Review Committee had recommend non-compliance for RUSADA. WADA’s Executive Committee will consider the recommendation when it meets on December 9. This real world soap opera continues as athletes around the world seek better structural and legal remedies to clean up sport. The press release states the...
Noah Hoffman, retired athlete, and current sophomore at Brown University is part of the movement to upgrade anti-doping enforcement. On October 28, he posted a blog highlighting why he supported the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act (RADA). RADA is federal legislation that will criminalize doping. More specifically, as Hoffman notes, it criminalizes doping conspiracies involving international sporting events like the Olympics and World Championships. Here are the details of RADA as highlighted by Hoffman in his October...
The culminating scenes in the RUSADA doping scandal have played out behind closed doors and before live audiences. On September 24, we reported on a three week timetable WADA had given Russian sport authorities to explain if and how it had manipulated information from the Moscow Lab’s data collection system. The data remains a key piece of evidence to determine the extent of Russian doping and its cover-up. It’s now been three weeks. In that...
Last week WADA sent out a press release with this catchy title: WADA leads exciting collaboration on dried-blood-spot testing. Here’s what this means: WADA signed a memorandum of understanding with seven anti-doping agencies, including the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) to further explore the viability of DBS (dried-blood-spot) testing as part of its global anti-doping tool kit. WADA claimed, “A further objective of the project is to develop guidelines for the collection, transport, analysis and...
Following the thread of doping allegations, WADA statements and actions, and RUSADA responses have been dizzying. This much is true: as much as we may be steaming ahead towards a final judgment and consequence for Russian sport (WADA recently gave Russia three weeks to explain discrepancies in the Moscow lab’s data handed over to investigators), there appears to be some internal strife within Russia’s sporting bodies. The domestic hand wringing came before the IAAF Track...
The WADA RUSADA Dance Continues
FasterSkierSeptember 23, 2019
On September 20, it was first reported by the Associated Press (AP) that the LIMS data handed over to WADA by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) had been manipulated and was moving forward with possible sanctions. The data in question came from the Moscow testing lab and was delivered to WADA as a conditon for reinstating Russia’s anti-doping program as compliant. The LIMS data was used to cross reference leaked data — acquired from a...
News Roundup for 8/12/19
Jason AlbertAugust 12, 2019
New IBU Secretary General Named On August 6th, the International Biathlon Union (IBU) announced Sweden’s Niklas Carlsson as its new Secretary General. At 44-years-old, Carlsson comes to the position with considerable experience in the world of alpine ski racing. According to the IBU press release, Carlsson served as the Secretary-General of the Swedish Ski Federation from 2011-2014. He has also worked for the International Ski Federation (FIS), and served on the Boards of two Swedish...
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) suspends Russian cross-country skier Nadezhda Fedorova (Press Release)
FasterSkierAugust 6, 2019
Press Release The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has suspended Russian cross-country skier Nadezhda Fedorova for four years for committing an anti-doping violation. The PyeongChang 2018 Paralympian returned an adverse analytical finding for oxandrolone metabolites in a urine sample provided on 26 October 2018 in an out of competition test in Novosibirsk, Russia, where the athlete was training. This substance is included on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) 2018 Prohibited List under the category S1.1A Anabolic...
Weekly News Round Up
FasterSkierJuly 11, 2019
FIS Rollerskiing in Beijing With the 2022 Winter Olympics only a few years out, it’s time to begin promoting cross-country skiing in the most populous country. The International Ski Federation (FIS) opened the cross-country rollerski World Cup with events in Beijing, China from July 4-6. . The first day of competition featured a 1.5-kilometer freestyle sprint. Norway’s Johannes Hosfløt Klæbo, the big name presence in Beijing, won the men’s race. The Norwegian wonderkind also won...
On July 2, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) sent out a press release updating the public about its investigation into systemic Russian doping. Early this year, WADA received the Moscow Lab’s Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) data. WADA also received the lab’s raw data. “The raw data are the result of sample analysis and indicate whether a substance or metabolite was detected,” WADA stated. “In an anti-doping case, raw data provide the most compelling evidence...
FIS recently signed an agreement with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) that ceded its adjudication power in doping cases to the CAS Anti-Doping Division or ADD. The CAS ADD is touted as a body able to make independent decisions when reviewing suspected doping violations. Prior to the agreement in early May, the most basic process for adjudicating a FIS initiated doping violation progressed within the organization. Once evidence for...
WADA Press Release: “WADA successfully retrieves samples from Moscow Laboratory”
FasterSkierApril 30, 2019
(Press Release) 30 April 2019 WADA successfully retrieves samples from Moscow Laboratory Since January’s retrieval by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) of the analytical data generated by the former Moscow Laboratory in Russia, WADA Intelligence and Investigations (I&I) has been working on a mission to extract all relevant samples still contained within the laboratory. WADA can confirm that a five-person team has successfully retrieved 2,262 samples from the laboratory, which had been split into A and...
This is part four of a multi-part series titled “Limiting Factors – A Genesis of Blood Doping”. It comes to FasterSkier from Sammy Izdatyev. You can read part one here, part two here, part three here, and part four here. Sammy Izdatyev is the pen name of a Finnish sports enthusiast and unaffiliated amateur historian, who has been interested in endurance sports since the turn of the millennium. He hopes that his pro bono – research can...
This is part four of a multi-part series titled “Limiting Factors – A Genesis of Blood Doping”. It comes to FasterSkier from Sammy Izdatyev. You can read part one here,part two here, and part three here. Sammy Izdatyev is the pen name of a Finnish sports enthusiast and unaffiliated amateur historian, who has been interested in endurance sports since the turn of the millennium. He hopes that his pro bono – research can provide more information...
This is part three of a multi-part series titled “Limiting Factors – A Genesis of Blood Doping”. It comes to FasterSkier from Sammy Izdatyev. You can read part one here, and part two here. Sammy Izdatyev is the pen name of a Finnish sports enthusiast and unaffiliated amateur historian, who has been interested in endurance sports since the turn of the millennium. He hopes that his pro bono – research can provide more information into the body...
This is part two of a multi-part series titled “Limiting Factors – A Genesis of Blood Doping”. It comes to FasterSkier from Sammy Izdatyev. You can read part one here. Sammy Izdatyev is the pen name of a Finnish sports enthusiast and unaffiliated amateur historian, who has been interested in endurance sports since the turn of the millennium. He hopes that his pro bono – research can provide more information into the body of literature...