With the spotlight on swimming’s international governing body, FINA, after recent doping scandals involving Russian and Chinese swimmers, the organization is taking steps to address any gaps in its anti-doping procedures.
A two-fold approach is being implemented in the lead-up to this summer’s Olympic Games, both with the goal of revealing whether improvements at FINA are needed to continue to combat dopers within the sport of swimming. All told, FINA is reportedly spending up to $2 million on anti-doping procedures in 2016, which represents an approximate $1 million increase from the norm.
An unnamed independent expert who was previously involved in the case of Lance Armstrong, the 7-time Tour de France cyclist who later admitted to doping for years, has been appointed as auditor of FINA’s anti-doping procedures. The expert will report back to FINA on August 5th any findings rendered from the audit.
Additionally during this time, a consulting company is set to review the management and operations of FINA to see “to see how we are doing on governance and transparency”, FINA Executive Director Cornel Marculescu told Around the Rings. Any recommendations generated form that separate review will be brought before the 2017 FINA Congress session.
As for his mentality on the doping situation overall, Marculescu told the media this week that, “I think it’s a war we will never win but it’s a battle we will win here and there for sure. We have cases and we are continuing to look at them.”
He did comment that, “I don’t think today from what I know we are faced with systematic doping.”
“We continue to do our program as strongly as possible. We spend whatever money is necessary to spend and we apply our rules without any kind of limitation,” Marculescu stated.
Maybe we need to redefine what systemic doping is. I think most people think it applied when a country has a program in place to dope their top athletes. Its easy to see that maybe that’s not the case anymore but we all would agree that cycling had a systemic problem without it being a specific country. With the availability of drugs being shipped from India and other places and with the availability of knowledge on doping, systemic doping should be applied to the whole body of participants in the sport as a group and not to any specific country. If more than 10-15% of top level participants are doping or are suspected of doping then the sport has a… Read more »
It isn’t April 1st, so I will rub wild with an assumption that this is not a joke statement. It sure is impossible to do something when you don’t try. FINA doesn’t believe there is systemic doping anywhere? Not in Russia? Not in China? If the representative data isn’t enough, I plainly don’t see how that could be anyone’s reasoning. But when FINA officers attend events and have a daily per diem amount larger than the prize money the athletes in the events win for placing it is easy to recognize when people are out of touch. FINA is a bit out of touch. On the dark side of the moon out of touch…I guess this is a battle swimming… Read more »
This is what I think….the USA is overly distracted by what goes on in the rest of the world. We should double or triple down on our own drug testing system. Regular and Random testing of all top 16 ranked athletes in every event. Mandatory disclosure of all prescriptions and penalties for failure to disclose equivalent to a positive test. Foreign athletes ranked in top 100 training in USA subject to same rules and they are required to prepay for the cost of 1 year of testing. We should not send our athletes to compete in countries with substandard rules or against countries with substandard rules. We should not allow athletes from these same countries to compete here.
I can’t believe the people who say “turn the page” or “swimmer A did their time, get over it.” Doping is not a victimless crime, so I hope it is taken seriously.
I think random surprise testing will fix most of the problems. The cheaters can’t know when they are being tested. We are seeing athletes catheterize themselves and add clean urine to their bladders at Olympics and World Championships. Another difficult cheat to detect is for an endurance athlete to add their own packed red blood cells before a competition, this increases their oxygen carrying capacity, so while no external drugs would be detected, the athlete would have a definite advantage at the end of a tough race… Read more »
I think a good first step should be like the NCAA. Student-athletes have to declare what they are consuming. This would then make it easy for WADA, FINA, IOC to then say, “Hey, why do all these Russian athletes need medication for heart conditions, and what does this medication actual do for them”.
There is also another step that should be taken, educating athletes on the dangers of doping. Besides getting caught and losing your right to compete, make money, and endorsements. There can be consequences to your health. There has to be more open and honest discussions about doping, instead of hiding it behind the scenes.
“I don’t think today from what I know we are faced with systematic doping.”
If his eyes and ears are closed then he probably believes this.
Then maybe they should do the rational thing and end the war on doping in professional sports. Pumping millions of dollars every year into a losing battle is absurd.
Should we give up on all laws that we pour Billions of dollars into upholding (somewhat)? Let people murder, swindle, destroy whatever they want? I can’t help but feel like there is some faulty logic here.
Right, because performance enhancement, which happens regardless of laws and should just be regulated to improve safety, is totally on the same level as murder, swindling, and destruction. False equivalence fallacy.
athletes will still cross any lines that are set up when you try to “regulate” performance enhancing drugs. just look at the 50 percent hematocrit limit that used to exist in cycling as an example.
You can quibble with my examples, but it seems you are trying to avoid the point – It is the same concept.
But for the sake of eliminating your version of false equivalence: Use any other area that rules are created to ensure a level playing field/safety. Regulation of industries, licensing operations, NCAA recruiting rules – which are all very equivalent to drug testing of athletes… should those rules be thrown out too?
1. Use of PEDs is a personal choice and really doesn’t affect anyone else. Excessive consumption of alcohol is more dangerous, yet legal.
2. Drug testing still accomplishes next to nothing. If anything, it makes the playing field less even. Some get caught, most don’t.
It’s still false equivalence.
There’s a saying I like and it goes that “the enemy of good is perfect”. Just because something isn’t perfect doesn’t mean that it isn’t good. And to abandon something that is good because it isn’t perfect doesn’t make sense, at least not to me.
Doping control in sport is not perfect, not by any means. It is good, though, and it does at least partially level the playing field and protect the athletes.
With a quitter’s attitude like this coming from our “leadership” it’s no wonder we are still dealing with this crap.
Not that I’m the biggest believer in FINA’s leadership, and I’ll admit when I saw the headline I sarcastically thought “that’s the spirit…”, but realistically, there will always be people looking for new ways to cheat. Beyond the headline, he says people are always gonna try, but that FINA will win this round. I’m not saying he’s the greatest guy in the world by any means, but this particular statement seems reasonable to me.