The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA; , AMA) is an international organisation co-founded by the governments of over 140 nations along with the International Olympic Committee based in Canada to promote, coordinate, and monitor the fight against drugs in sports. The agency's key activities include scientific research, education, development of anti-doping capacities, and monitoring of the World Anti-Doping Code, whose provisions are enforced by the UNESCO International Convention Against Doping in Sport. The aims of the Council of Europe Anti-Doping Convention and the United States Anti-Doping Agency are also closely aligned with those of WADA.
WADA is responsible for the World Anti-Doping Code, adopted by more than 650 sports organisations, including international sports federations, national anti-doping organisations, the IOC, and the International Paralympic Committee.
History The World Anti-Doping Agency is a foundation created through a collective initiative led by the national governments of over 140 countries along with the International Olympic Committee (IOC). It was set up on 10 November 1999 in Lausanne, Switzerland, nearly a year after meetings that resulted in what was called the "Declaration of Lausanne", to promote, coordinate and monitor the fight against drugs in sports. Since 2002, the organisation's headquarters have been located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The Lausanne office became the regional office for Europe. Other regional offices have been established in Africa, Asia/Oceania and Latin America. WADA is responsible for the World Anti-Doping Code, adopted by more than 650 sports organisations, including international sports federations, national anti-doping organisations, the IOC, and the International Paralympic Committee. , its president is Witold Banka.Executive Committee at WADA official website, June 2014
Initially funded by the International Olympic Committee, WADA receives half of its budgetary requirements from them, with the other half coming from various national governments. Its governing bodies are also composed in equal parts by representatives from the sporting movement (including athletes) and governments of the world. The Agency's key activities include scientific research, education, development of anti-doping capacities, and monitoring of the World Anti-Doping Code.
McLaren Report
In 2016, academic Richard McLaren, an independent investigator working on behalf of WADA, published a second part of his report (the first having been published in July 2016) showing that more than 1,000 Russian athletes in over 30 sports had been involved in or benefited from state-sponsored doping from 2011 to 2015. As a result of the report, many Russian athletes were barred from participating in the 2018 Winter Olympics. Despite widely accepted evidence, in 2018 WADA lifted its ban on Russian athletes. The reinstatement was strongly criticised by, among others, Russian whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov, and his lawyer, James Walden.
Organisation and governance WADA is an international organisation. It delegates work in individual countries to Regional and National Anti-Doping Organisations (RADOs and NADOs) and mandates that these organisations are compliant with the World Anti-Doping Code. WADA also accredits around 30 laboratories to perform the required scientific analysis for doping control.
The statutes of WADA and the World Anti-Doping Code mandate the Court of Arbitration for Sport's ultimate jurisdiction in deciding doping-related cases.World Anti-Doping Agency: 2009 World Anti-Doping Code
Foundation Board The highest decision-making authority in WADA is the 38-member Foundation Board, which is comprised equally of IOC representatives and representatives of national governments. The Foundation Board appoints the agency's president. Most day-to-day management is delegated to the executive committee.
Executive Committee The executive committee, comprising 16 members, is delegated the Foundation Board to manage the day-to-day operations of the WADA. They are also responsible for all decisions not reserved by WADA's Statutes to the Board. Representatives are appointed by the IOC and governments. Many are current or former athletes. Witold Bańka is president, and Yang Yang is vice-president of the committee.
List of presidents Nr Dates Name Country of origin 1 10 November 1999 – 31 December 2007Dick Pound 2 1 January 2008 – 31 December 2013John Fahey 3 1 January 2014 – 31 December 2019Craig Reedie 4 1 January 2020 – presentWitold Bańka
Other committees The Nominations Committee was created in September 2019 in order to ensure that the right people are recruited to serve in senior governance roles within the organisation. Independent Australian business executive Diane Smith-Gander was appointed as inaugural chair of the committee. Other independent members appointed are German human resources expert Regine Buettner and British business executive Simon Gillham. The sports movement nominee is Kelly Fairweather from South Africa, and Maja Makovec Brenčič of Slovenia is the public authority (government) nominee.
There also exist several sub-committees with narrower remits, including a Finance and Administration Committee and an Athlete Committee peopled by athletes.
World Anti-Doping Code
The World Anti-Doping Code is a document published by WADA that approximately 700 sports organisations across the world are signatories to. The code "harmonizes anti-doping policies, rules, and regulations within sport organisations and among public authorities" for the purpose of "protect[ing] the athletes' fundamental right to participate in doping-free sport". The code is supplemented by eight international standards published by WADA covering the topics of prohibited substances, testing and investigations, laboratories, Therapeutic Use Exemptions, protection of privacy and personal information, code compliance by signatories, education, and results management. The most recent version of the code took effect on 1 January 2021.
In 2004, the World Anti-Doping Code was implemented by sports organisations prior to the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. In November 2007, more than 600 sports organisations (international sports federations, national anti-doping organisations, the International Olympic Committee, the International Paralympic Committee, and a number of professional leagues in various countries of the world) unanimously adopted a revised Code at the Third World Conference on Doping in Sport, to take effect on 1 January 2009.
In 2013, further amendments to the Code were approved, doubling the sanction for a first offence where intentional doping is established, but allowing for more lenient sanctions for inadvertent rule violations or for athletes co-operating with anti-doping agencies. The updated code came into effect on 1 January 2015.2015 World Anti-Doping Code - Final Draft WADA. Retrieved 21 January 2014.
On 16 November 2017, WADA's Foundation Board initiated the 2021 Code Review Process, which also involved simultaneous review of the International Standards. During this time, stakeholders had multiple opportunities to contribute and make recommendations on how to further strengthen the global anti-doping programme. Following the review process, stakeholders were invited to intervene publicly on the proposed Code and Standards during the Agency's Fifth World Conference on Doping in Sport in Katowice, Poland – an opportunity which was taken up by over 70 stakeholder organisations – before the Code and the full suite of Standards were approved by the Foundation Board and executive committee respectively.
Whereabouts rule
The anti-doping code revised the whereabouts system in place since 2004, under which, , athletes are required to select one hour per day, seven days a week to be available for no-notice drugs tests.
This was unsuccessfully challenged at law in 2009 by Sporta, the Belgian sports union, arguing that the system violated article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights; and by FIFPro, the international umbrella group of football players' unions, basing its case on data protection and employment law.
A significant number of sports organisations, governments, athletes, and other individuals and organisations have expressed support for the "whereabouts" requirements. The International Association of Athletics Federations and UK SportWhereabouts at UK Anti-Doping, 2014 are two of the most vocal supporters of this rule. Both FIFA and UEFA have criticised the system, citing privacy concerns, as has the BCCI.
WADA has published a Q&A explaining the rationale for the change.
Controversies Statistical validity of tests Professor Donald A. Berry has argued that the closed systems used by anti-doping agencies do not allow statistical validation of the tests. Full access is restricted to subscribers This argument was seconded by an accompanying editorial in the journal Nature (7 August 2008). The anti-doping community and scientists familiar with anti-doping work rejected these arguments. On 30 October 2008, Nature (Vol 455) published a letter to the editor from WADA countering Berry's article. There has been at least one case where the development of statistical decision limit used by WADA in HGH use testing was found invalid by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Chinese doping allegations and subsequent conflict with USADA
In 2018, the exterior case containing samples from an anti-doping test, but not the vials themselves, was smashed by the security guards of Chinese swimmer Sun Yang. In justification, the Doping Control Assistant (DCA) in charge of the testing mission was later criticised by Sun Yang, Chinese media, journalists, and scholars for not following the proper protocols. Sun argued the DCA in question lacked proper identification, a situation that he said had happened previously with the same assistant. FINA's Doping Panel issued Sun with a warning but imposed no penalty. WADA appealed the FINA decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The Sunday Times reported on January 27, 2019 that FINA's Doping Panel issued Sun with a warning but imposed no penalty on Sun despite the heavy criticism levelled at the swimmer and his entourage by the International swimming federation's Doping Panel. As a result of that newspaper report, WADA investigated the matter and appealed the FINA decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Later, in July 2019, News Corp in Australia, part of the same media group as The Sunday Times in London, published in full the report FINA had kept secret.
A three-member CAS panel found Sun guilty of refusing to co-operate with sample testers and banned him from competitive swimming until February 2028. However, Sun's lawyers appealed the ruling, which was widely celebrated but also criticised in some quarters. On December 22, 2020, the Swiss Federal Tribunal set the CAS award aside due to the perceived bias of the president of the panel, who before the Sun Yang case came to light had tweeted comments in opposition to videos showing animal cruelty in China that included a racial slur. In addition, another arbitrator, Romano Subiotto, had been sitting on a WADA's working group, though this was no impediment to him serving on a CAS panel. After a second hearing, which unlike the first was not held in public, Sun's suspension was reduced to four years and three months, opening up the possibility of the swimmer being able to participate in the 2024 Olympics, even though it would turn out that his ban would not end until after China's Olympic swimming trials for the Paris Games.