The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) recently announced that the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) will face additional sanctions for its failure to address non-compliance issues.
The executive committee meetings, held in Shanghai, also identified the Pan American Sport Organisation (Panam Sports) and the South Africa and Bermuda Anti-Doping Agencies as being non-compliant with the WADA code.
Whilst the impact of new sanctions on RUSADA may be limited due to existing world sporting body sanctions stemming from Russia’s ongoing military conflict with Ukraine, the penalties recommended by WADA’s Compliance Review Committee (CRC) include the non-display of Russia’s flag at the Olympic Games, world championships, continental and regional competitions until specific reinstatement conditions are met.
These new sanctions are additional to those previously agreed upon by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in December 2020, which have now elapsed after two years.
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RUSADA was deemed non-compliant due to non-conformities relating to national legislation that were identified during a virtual audit in September 2022.
Meanwhile, South Africa and Bermuda were found to be non-compliant due to their failure to appropriately implement the WADA Code into their legal systems.
Both countries have 21 days to dispute or resolve their non-compliance concerns.
If South Africa is unable to address the non-compliance issues before the 21-day appeal window closes, they will be unable to fly their flag should they reach the quarter-finals and beyond at the Rugby World Cup.
As for the Pan Am Games, which are scheduled for Santiago from October 20 to November 5, the main impact of non-compliance will be that there will be supervision of the entire testing program implemented by Panam Sports at their expense.
