\n<\/p>\n
One of the most senior figures in global anti-doping has warned that too many drug cheats in sport are evading detection \u2013 and criticised the current system as \u201cineffective\u201d.<\/p>\n
David Howman, the former director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) and the chair of the Athletics Integrity Unit, urged anti-doping bodies to be more ambitious in catching elite athletes again rather than focusing on compliance issues.<\/p>\n
In what was a clear criticism of Wada\u2019s leadership, Howman also told them that the lack of success in catching cheats was harming the clean sport message.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s be honest and pragmatic \u2026 intentional dopers at elite level are evading detection,\u201d Howman told the Wada\u2019s World Conference on Doping in Sport in South Korea. \u201cWe are not effective enough nowadays in catching cheats. We have great education programmes which help but they don\u2019t impact the intentional rule-breakers in elite sport\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur ineffectiveness in dealing with those who are beating the rules is hurting the anti-doping movement\u2019s credibility, with the resulting risk that our clean-sport message falls on deaf ears.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ironically the AIU is widely seen as the gold standard when it comes to catching cheats, having sanctioned 427 elite athletes for doping offences since 2017.<\/p>\n
However, Howman said the AIU could do more, despite its successes, adding that \u201cit was not catching enough of them and significant improvements are necessary\u201d.<\/p>\n
Howman, who spent 13 years as Wada\u2019s director general, also urged the anti-doping community to \u201cmove beyond compliance to a system that supports effective, ambitious anti-doping efforts\u201d.<\/p>\n
Focusing on compliance-based testing, Howman warned, would not catch what he called the \u201csophisticated dopers\u201d and he urged Wada to be more proactive in \u201cpromoting the pursuit of anti-doping excellence\u201d and for greater transparency on anti-doping data\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must all do better to support our clean athletes by catching the dirty ones, especially those at the pinnacle of sport,\u201d he added. \u201cLet\u2019s resolve to strengthen our anti-doping system as we strive for cleaner, fairer and more credible sport.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the most senior figures in global anti-doping has warned that too many drug cheats in sport are evading detection \u2013 and criticised the current system as \u201cineffective\u201d. David Howman, the former director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) and the chair of the Athletics Integrity Unit, urged anti-doping bodies to be more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[4538,20582,19199,689,2241,542,20583,1123,344],"class_list":{"0":"post-37096","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-admits","9":"tag-antidoping","10":"tag-cheats","11":"tag-chief","12":"tag-detection","13":"tag-drugs","14":"tag-escaping","15":"tag-global","16":"tag-sport"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}