WADA – FasterSkier

Estonia’s Andrus Veerpalu Guilty of Supporting Doping: Banned Two Years by FIS

Jason AlbertApril 15, 2021

On April 14, the International Ski Federation (FIS) announced former Estonian cross-country skier Andrus Veerpalu was found guilty by the CAS Anti-Doping Division. Veerpalu was involved with “Operation Aderlass”, a blood doping scheme run by Dr. Marc Schmidt in Germany. Veerpalu’s penalty is a two-year ban from FIS sanctioned events ending on March 17, 2023. Now retired from skiing, the fifty-year-old Veerpalu in recent years has served as a coach for team “Haanja” in Estonia....

Doping General News Racing

Full CAS Ruling for WADA v. RUSADA Released

Jason AlbertJanuary 15, 2021

This week, the Court of Arbitration for Sport released its full ruling for the case: World Anti-Doping Agency v. Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA). Last month, CAS made a binding decision on the case that received widespread condemnation from clean sport advocates and applause from within much of the Russian sports community. The cliff notes version of the Dec. 17 ruling halved the penalty from four to two years for Russia. WADA had sought a four-year ban from...

Doping News Racing

CAS Ruling: Russia Banned from 2021 and 2022 Olympics

FasterSkierDecember 17, 2020

Today, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) decided Russia will not be represented or recognized officially at the 2021 Tokyo or 2022 Beijing Olympics. The ruling, handed down on Dec. 17, mostly concludes a long-winded judicial process between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA). WADA had originally sanctioned RUSADA to a major competition ban of four years. Today’s CAS ruling, although seemingly in agreement with WADA’s arguments, reduced that penalty...

Doping Feature

FasterSkier Explains: Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act Passes Senate

Gavin KentchNovember 20, 2020

FasterSkier Explains: Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act Passes Senate A new anti-doping bill that criminalizes international doping conspiracies, while pointedly focusing on high-level organizers rather than on individual athletes, and that makes an expansive claim for U.S. jurisdiction over doping occurring at international competitions while excepting the most high-profile American professional sports leagues, is on the verge of becoming law. Here’s what you need to know: What it is: “An act to impose criminal sanctions on certain...

Multimedia Nordic Nation Podcasts

Nordic Nation: Building Equity in Sport with Dr. Edwin Moses

FasterSkierOctober 12, 2020

In this episode, we hear from a familiar voice – someone, in fact, we’ve heard from recently on the podcast, former elite cross-country skier Noah Hoffman. Post-race career, Hoffman has been deeply involved in the anti-doping movement as an educator, lobbyist, and content creator. This conversation is from Hoffman’s content creation side. A few months back the US Anti Doping Agency (USADA) posted a six-plus minute video interview between Hoffman and Dr. Edwin Moses –...

Doping Feature News

Evi Sachenbacher: Sacrificial Lamb on the Doping Altar

Peter MindeAugust 11, 2020

A career ended prematurely, for no reason. During the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, German biathlete Evi Sachenbacher failed a doping test. Although the ensuing ban was subsequently reduced from two years to six months, it effectively ended her career. New information seems to confirm that Sachenbacher’s positive drugs test at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi had nothing to do with deliberate doping. Rather, she was used as a sacrificial pawn by...

General News

News Round-Up for Mid-July

FasterSkierJuly 21, 2020

The Biathlon Integrity Unit Comes Online: Earlier this month, the website biathlonintegrity.com came online. The site is the digital interface of the Biathlon Integrity Unit, an independent arm of the International Biathlon Union. Part of the Biathlon Integrity Unit’s mandate, according to the website, is to provide a mechanism to “investigate and prosecute violations” as they relate to “integrity related matters in Biathlon, including anti-doping, ethical breaches, betting-related issues and any kind of result...

General News

News Roundup: WADA in the News Cycle

FasterSkierJune 30, 2020

WADA Athletes’ Anti-Doping Rights Act: On June 18th, WADA issued a press release announcing its Athletes’ Anti-Doping Rights Act. According to WADA, the act was developed and approved by the organization’s Athlete Committee. Essentially, the document asserts it is an athlete’s “fundamental right” to participate in clean sport. It is a two-part document. The first part focuses on rights established in WADA’s Code and International Standards. The second part consists of recommendations, and according to...

Nordic Nation Podcasts

Nordic Nation: Clean Sport, Testing Gaps, and Virtual Sample Collection with Noah Hoffman

Rachel PerkinsMay 27, 2020

As we all know, the COVID-19 global pandemic has left the world scrambling to adapt to the many challenges of slowing the spread of the virus. In the world of Olympic sports, the ripple effect has disrupted the efforts of anti-doping agencies worldwide to conduct the athlete testing normally relied upon to hold athletes accountable to abiding by the rules surrounding banned and controlled substances. Most international antidoping agencies have halted testing since mid-March as...

Doping News Opinion

A Glance at Some Anti-Doping Numbers in Cross-Country Skiing

Jason AlbertMay 8, 2020

A year and more has elapsed since a doping scandal rocked the 2019 cross-country World Championships in Austria. Over that time, we have learned a bit more about what transpired at the micro-level. In the broader picture, those covering doping in sport often scour The World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) annual release of a voluminous document titled “Anti-Doping Testing Figures”. The data dump runs hundreds of pages. Looking for figures on the number of tests per...

Doping Multimedia News Podcasts The Devon Kershaw Show

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.

Doping News

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...

Doping News

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...

Doping News

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....

Doping News

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...

Doping News

The Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act and the Power of One

Jason AlbertNovember 21, 2019

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...

Doping News

RUSADA Head Confirms Data Manipulation as WADA Asks for More Time

Jason AlbertOctober 24, 2019

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...

Doping News

A Possible New Anti-Doping Tool: Dried-Blood-Spot Testing

Jason AlbertOctober 8, 2019

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...

Doping News

Open Letters from RUSADA Director Yuriy Ganus

Jason AlbertOctober 4, 2019

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...

Doping News

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...

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