The Global Sport and Anti-Doping System Needs Immediate Reform

14 February 2022: Today is another example of the failures of the global sport and anti-doping system. The fact that Kamila Valieva, a fifteen-year-old Russian figure skater, has been found to have a performance enhancing substance in her system is evidence of abuse of a minor. Sport should be protecting its athletes, not damaging them.

Doping and the trauma of a positive test pose grave physical and psychological risks to all athletes but especially to minors. It is unacceptable that these risks have been placed on a fifteen-year-old.

The volume of abuses athletes have endured over the decades can undeniably be attributed to the power imbalance that sport leaders, administrators, and coaches have over athletes. This power imbalance can only be resolved through an equal partnership between athletes and sporting administrators. Athletes must have independent professional representation and the ability to collectively bargain.

It is blatantly clear that Valieva would have never been placed in this position if the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), International Olympic Committee (IOC), and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) had done their jobs and banned Russia from global sport. Russia has never been incentivized to reform because sport leaders favored politics over principle and rebranding over banning.

Athletes have lost confidence in the global anti-doping system. Calls for reform of WADA have been persistent and loud, but they have been continually cast aside and ignored by those seeking to maintain centralized unaccountable power. Sport administrators fear a robust, fully independent, and effective anti-doping system precisely because such a system would hold the perpetrators of institutional doping accountable.

The doping of Kamila Valieva must be a wake-up call for every fan, parent, and athlete to stand together to demand reform. The doping of minor athletes must be stopped. Any country that systematically dopes its athletes cannot be allowed to participate in international sport.

Global Athlete will continue to push for change by working with athletes, athlete groups, and human rights leaders to demand IOC, WADA, and CAS reforms. The status quo is no longer acceptable.

-ENDS -