WADA responds strongly to Thompson’s statements about ban on Olympic athletes
The World Anti Doping Agency has rejected the comments of Daley Thompson, who has earned himself the honour of being the Olympic champion of the decathlon two times.
Thompson had previously shared his views while writing in a newspapers column that was published in the week gone by. Thompson’s statements have made the indication that the WADA was incompetent in its job as the athlete had said that the agency was not
taking it “seriously.”
WADA has recently come into the lime light because of the ban imposed by the British Olympic Association on its athletes that barred them from taking part in the upcoming London 2012 Olympic Games.
Not only that, the ban imposed by the BOA had caused some of its athletes to undergo a lifetime ban from taking part in any Olympics event. The matter was taken up to the Court of arbitration by one of the athlete and the rules of WADA as well as BOA were
found to be contradicting as WADA took a less severe stance on the matter.
The column which the 53-year-old Olympic champion had written criticised the WADA on its lax stance on athletes which are found to be doping and strongly supported the take of the BOA which is to impose a life time ban on its athletes who are found to have
illegal drugs in their blood stream for the purpose of performing better.
The statements made by Thompson elicited the following response by the Director general of WADA, David Howman, “The alternative would be to have anti-doping rules that vary from country to country, and sport to sport, which would be a return to the dark
ages of anti-doping and a problem which existed during your time as an elite athlete. It would result in athletes in different sports or from different countries receiving different bans for the same offences, and even worse athletes from the same sport receiving
different penalties depending on the country they competed for.”
The complete response of the director of WADA has been made public on the official website of the agency.
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