Wada Stands Behind ‘whereabouts’ System
Despite protests from high-profile athletes around the current drug-testing scheme, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has said that the new programme needs to be given time before changes are made.
WADA’s critics, which include top tennis players Andy Murray, Venus Williams and Rafa Nadal, have complained that their privacy has been invaded due to the system, labeled ‘Whereabouts’.
The agency’s director general David Howman, however, has said that the programme is necessary and has pleaded with its critics to give it time.
The ‘Whereabouts’ programme has been in use since the first of the year, requires anyone on the national testing register – basically any elite athlete in an Olympic or major team sport – to be available to testers for one hour a day, between 6am and 11pm three months in advance.
If an athlete is not where they said they would be when the call comes in, they are given a strike. Three strikes in an 18-month period and the athlete is banned from competition.
Although standing strong behind the scheme, Howman has admitted that, like any new programme, there will be issues and opportunities to refine the system in the coming months.
Whatever changes are made, however, the director general insisted it has to work worldwide and will not be made until the system has been in place for a longer period of time.
