USA Swimming Backs Plan To Divorce FINA & Doping Control; Olympic Summit Begins

USA Swimming has officially thrown its weight behind plans to have anti-doping removed from the auspices of FINA.

Some 10 weeks after Bob Bowman and Michael Phelps said at the Rio Olympic Games that responsible authorities had dropped the ball when it came to protecting clean athletes and providing the best environment for clean sport, the American federation that represents them has backed moves to take anti-doping out of the hands of bodies such as FINA and make the realm “independent from all sport organizations and from influence from governments”.

The stance was taken a week out from the International Olympic Committee’s Olympic Summit in Lausanne today. The gathering will reinforce the IOC’s wish to have anti-doping removed from the auspices of international federations in a move to a fully independent system. World Anti-Doping Agency bosses will be among those at the think-tank session, the meaning of “independent” among those that will come under close scrutiny in the days and weeks and months ahead.

USA Swimming pledged its support for independence in a letter to USADA boss Travis Tygart in which the swim federation lends its support to “USADA’s efforts to bring about change to the global anti-doping efforts and organisation”.

American swim bosses voluntary,  Jim Sheehan, USA Swimming’s president, and paid, Chuck Wielgus, executive director, and the leadership of USA Swimming have lent their support to proposals for anti-doping reform agreed at a gathering of iNADO in late August.

The international member association of National Anti-Doping Organisations proposals

In their letter of support, Sheehan and Wields tell Tygart:

“Anti-doping efforts around the world need to be independent from all sport organizations and from influence from governments. Without true independence and the ability to take on not only those individuals who are cheating but also the systematic programs we have seen causing irreparable harm to the clean athletes of the world.”

Tygart, meanwhile, has called pro-Russian hacking team Fancy Bears “con artists” after they released a seventh tranche of documents allegedly showing “cover ups” by US sports officials in a series of email exchanges including USADA staff. Tygart’s response:

“This is just another desperate attempt to distract from the real issue of state-sponsored doping.”

In July, a WADA-commissioned report from Prof. Richard McClaren outlined state-backed doping of athletes and cover-ups that included exchanging samples said to contain banned substances with clean urine collected on previous occasions with the approval of Russian Government officials.

Since then the Fancy Bears have released the medical records of some of the world’s biggest sports stars, stolen from the World Anti-Doping Agency database “ADAMS”. The “revelations” are largely based on the legitimate Therapeutic Use Exemptions that allow athletes to take medicines containing banned substances for specific periods of time and under particular circumstances.

The issues has raised questions about whether some athletes and programs are abusing the TUE system in order to take banned substances t enhance performance.

The latest FB release includes email …

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