WADA Set To Demand Power To Ban Countries From Major Competitions

The World Anti-Doping Agency will "demand the power to exclude countries from leading competitions if, like Russia, they are judged to have promoted systematic doping in sport," according to Martyn Ziegler of the LONDON TIMES.  WADA has "no authority at present to issue punishments -- only to recommend to bodies such as the International Olympic Committee what action should be taken." The Russian doping scandal, where two reports implicated senior government officials, "highlighted WADA’s lack of power given that the IOC refused WADA’s request to ban the country from the Rio de Janeiro Olympics." A proposal to a WADA meeting on Sunday will "call for the body to be given 'graded sanction powers,' allowing it to impose punishments from warnings and fines, to exclusion." WADA’s demand is "likely to put it at loggerheads with the IOC again." IOC President Thomas Bach has "insisted that he does not support 'the prosecutor also being the judge'" (LONDON TIMES, 11/17).