Britain's Aggar quits WADA role
over Russia scandal
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[December 13, 2019]
(Reuters) - Former British
Paralympian Victoria Aggar has resigned from the World Anti-Doping
Agency's (WADA) Athlete Committee over the organization's handling
of the Russian doping scandal.
WADA has banned Russia from all major sporting events for four years
for tampering with doping tests, but left the door open for its
athletes to compete at next year's Tokyo Games as neutrals under the
Olympic flag.
Russia's Olympic Committee has described the sanctions as "illogical
and excessive" while President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow could
appeal WADA's decision.
However, Aggar, who won a rowing bronze at the Beijing Games in
2008, said WADA had not gone far enough and had broken promises by
not imposing a blanket ban on Russian athletes.
"I do not feel that WADA exists any more," she said on Twitter .
"Too many political games (or machinations), too many conflicts and
too much self-interest has led to too many bad decisions,
compromises and broken promises.
"Most recently the biggest blow to athletes is the decision by WADA
to ignore calls from its very own Athlete Committee for Russia to be
banned from competing at the next Olympic and Paralympic Games."
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Aggar, one of 17 committee members, said WADA had refused to publish
several Athlete Committee statements on its website.
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"The concept of silencing athletes is one of the reasons why we are
seeing so much abuse in sport," she said.
"I believe every athlete has the right to clean sport and in such an
environment I don't believe Russian athletes will have this choice.
"Yes, they will suffer in the short term with a blanket ban but in
the long term we may be able to contribute to a change of culture
for the future young generations."
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WADA director-general Olivier Niggli told the BBC in response to
Aggar's resignation that the decision not to publish the statements
was due to the lack of a "clear majority" among committee members.
"Nine members were in favor of issuing a statement objecting to the
(independent compliance review committee's) recommendation (on
Russia), while eight were against and had prepared an alternative
statement," he said.
"Therefore, there was no consensus, and it would have been very
strange - to say the least - for WADA to publish two different
statements from its own Athlete Committee. In my view, it is simply
not correct to mislead in this fashion."
(Reporting by Simon Jennings in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter
Rutherford)
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