LAUSANNE, Switzerland — The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) said on Thursday it had signed agreements with 19 Olympic international sports federations to conduct out-of-competition tests.
But nine federations, including FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, and the International Tennis Federation (ITF) are still engaged in negotiating terms with the newly-created agency.
‘We commend the federations that have signed up for the testing programme,’ said WADA chairman and International Olympic Committee (IOC) vice-president Dick Pound, in a statement.
‘It is encouraging that 19 appear to be anxious to address this problem by joining the programme so quickly. We hope the remaining federations will follow suit as soon as possible.’
While federations such as the IAAF (International Amateur Athletic Federation), UCI (International Cycling Union) and FINA (International Swimming Federation) have supported WADA’s efforts, other such as FIFA have been slow to come on board.
FIFA has bumped heads with the IOC and WADA on several issues concerning testing and sanctions.
A recent study commissioned by FIFA, carried out on soccer players, showed that when under stress, higher levels of the banned hormone nandrolone could be produced naturally in the body above the current IOC threshold that would result in sanctions.
FIFA’s study appears to contradict one carried out by the IOC at the 1998 Nagano Olympic Games, challenging the IOC’s right to impose sanctions.
Even without comprehensive agreement, WADA has pushed ahead with out-of-competition testing, announcing that it had conducted 400 tests and has 400 more tests planned for the next 10 days.
The 400 tests that have been completed represent about one fifth of the 2,500 random tests WADA plans to conduct before the end of the year.
The majority of those tests (2,150) will be carried out before the start of the Sydney Olympic Games on September 15.
The following are a list of federations which have signed agreements with WADA:
AIBA (boxing), FEI (equestrian), FIBA (basketball), FIC (canoeing), FIH (hockey), FILA (wrestling), FINA (swimming), FISA (rowing), FITA (archery), IAAF (athletics), IBF (badminton), IJF (judo), ISAF (sailing), ISF (softball), ISSF (shooting), ITTF (table tennis), ITU (triathlon), UCI (cycling), WTF (taekwondo).
The federations that have not signed contracts with WADA are:
FIE (fencing), FIFA (soccer), FIG (gymnastics), FIVB (volleyball), IBAF (baseball), IHF (handball), ITF (tennis), IWF (weightlifting), UIPM (modern pentathlon).
Reuters
Source: SOCOG