WADA chief confident in independent observer program

Following a New York Times report Thursday of Russian athletes doping during the Sochi Olympics, World Anti-Doping Agency director general David Howman expressed confidence in the independent observer program that oversaw doping control at the Games.

Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the former director of Russia’s anti-doping laboratory, told the Times he replaced tainted urine samples with clean ones for Russian athletes in a doping program with the help of a man he believed to be from the Russian internal intelligence service.

Rodchenkov’s revelations marked the first time he’d spoken to the media since a WADA independent commission report in November concluded he’d helped lead a state-sponsored doping program with the track and field team by destroying urine samples and covering up positive tests.

Rodchenkov told the Times that he, the man he believed to be an officer with the Federal Security Service (FSB) and a colleague often worked late at night to replace the urine in samples of Russian athletes. The newspaper’s story notes that independent observers watched the lab at times throughout the day, but seldom overnight.

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Speaking to USA TODAY Sports on Friday, Howman said he was confident in the job the observer team did.

“You have to remember, we’re not the police. We have to rely very heavily on the individuals who are appointed and assessed by others to carry out doping controls,” he said. “There are not police checks of those individuals, nor is the ability by our observer team to say, ‘Goodness me, we’ve got somebody from the FSB as a doping control officer.’ We would never find that out. Our observer teams, which are experts in doping control, have been selected for that purpose and they go to Games and they can’t cover every venue and every doping control that’s taken. So they have to be selective from the way they look at it, and I’m very confident they carried out that task to the best of their ability.”

Howman said WADA did not staff the lab with an observer 24 hours per day. Rather, the lab closed down at a certain point each day and everyone went home.

“The suggestion (in the story) is secretly the lab director went back and gave access to the FSB,” Howman said. “That’s just something we would never be able to observe because we wouldn’t have thought would happen.”

In response, WADA has committed to investigate the allegations and seek documentation and information from Rodchenkov. The former lab director spoke to the independent commission before the report’s release.

He has since moved to Los Angeles and is working with a documentary filmmaker. Following the release of the Times story, he said he would be willing to help identify the samples he tampered with.

“I think we have to analyze all the information ourselves but we would be stupid if we didn’t look at that carefully to do that, to take steps that might be better,” Howman said. “We will aggressively look at the information. I respect the journalist who has written it. I’m sure she had corroborative sources and corroborative information besides just the interview with the lab director. There is information there that we would like to view and have access to, and we will request that, as I said before. Once we’ve had the time to look at it carefully, then we’ll determine what we can do.”