WADA head Reedie hits back at critics, won’t step down

LONDON, (Reuters) - World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) president Craig Reedie hit back at his critics yesterday and said he would not be resigning after coming under fire over the reinstatement of Russia’s testing body RUSADA.

The Scot bridled at comments made by U.S. AntiDoping Agency (USADA) head Travis Tygart calling for him to step down and suggesting having an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member at the helm was “the fox guarding the henhouse”.

“It’s patently untrue,” Reedie told Reuters at a WADA symposium at Lord’s cricket ground.

“It’s a phrase that has been used against people from the International Olympic Committee who are involved with WADA and it ignores reality. I find it quite honestly offensive. Travis Tygart...should not have used it.”

“This (WADA) is an organization, a hybrid between governments and sport, with lots of able people working every day for clean sport. And this kind of stuff is maybe publicly attractive to the people who say it but does not represent reality.”

WADA has acknowledged the need for change, a governance working group recommending the future introduction of an independent president with no links to the sports movement or governments.

Reedie said he would serve to the end of his second term, which expires next year.

“Nobody in WADA is telling me that I am not performing well, nobody in the IOC is telling me, so why should I resign? I don’t think that would be productive for either the IOC or WADA and therefore I am pretty determined to see this out,” he said.

A forum, convened by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and USADA, on Wednesday joined calls for an urgent restructuring of the global anti-doping body to serve clean athletes.

Leaders of 18 national anti-doping organizations had delivered the same message on Monday.

Tygart told the Daily Mail newspaper at the Washington meeting that confidence in WADA had been destroyed.

“If you have an interest in needing Russia in events because it’s good for broadcasters or sponsorships or the IOC pocketbook, we can’t have those same IOC folks making decisions that are tough,” said the American. Reedie said he had experienced more problems in recent years with the IOC than governments and suggested Tygart should look to his own backyard.

“If he claims to be a proponent and developer of clean sport, then he might actually look at the major sports in his own country which are not code-compliant,” he said.