WADA President Craig Reedie said that the governing bodies of sports that want WADA to "catch and punish cheats for them will have to wait for two years," according to Brian Oliver of REUTERS. Reedie: "You can't change the whole anti-doping system in a short period, and work is ongoing to find out what investment is needed. There are a whole range of issues concerning technical arrangements and political arrangements. We are working though it, and if this is going to work the way the IOC have proposed, it will not be till 2018." Int'l sports federations and governments, which are 50% partners of WADA, "should fund the reform process, said the IOC, which also proposed that all sanctions be carried out not by the sports themselves," but by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The European Weightlifting Federation voted unanimously at its annual congress last week that the sport should "go independent" in the way suggested by the IOC. Continental federations "cannot, however, determine global policy." Reedie: "We’re only interested in the international federations, not continental ones. At the end of the day, if the international federations don’t want to join us, then it (the IOC plan) won’t work" (REUTERS, 4/15).
LAB LOSES ACCREDITATION: REUTERS' Martyn Herman reported a Moscow laboratory used for anti-doping tests had its accreditation revoked by WADA on Friday "after failing to comply" with int'l standards. The lab has been non-operational since WADA suspended it in November "after an independent commission's report identified systematic failures" within Russia's anti-doping program. WADA said a laboratory in Lisbon "had also been suspended from carrying out anti-doping activities" because it had failed to meet the Int'l Standard for Laboratories requirements. Russia is currently suspended from int'l track and field "in the wake of the report exposing widespread cheating and corruption and its athletes could miss the Rio Olympics." The country, second only to the U.S. in the sport's pecking order, "will be allowed to return to competition, including this year's Olympics," only when it can prove to WADA and the IAAF that it has "met a series of conditions regarding its anti-doping operation" (REUTERS, 4/15).
