Friday, May 16, 2008

World Anti-Doping Agency Wants Court Costs for Failed Appeals

The new sheriff in charge of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) - John Fahey - no longer seems content with simply winning cases against presumably doped athletes. In a dubious act of schadenfreude, he's considering asking that athletes who lose their ultimate appeal to the court of arbitration for sport (CAS) pay WADA's legal fees as well. This prospect is being prominently rolled out with the case of cyclist Floyd Landis, who's awaiting his final appeal to the CAS.

While we at Run Junkie feel strongly that dopers deserve everything they get, adding the prospect of paying WADA's legal fees to the appeals process seems like a move to quash any opposition to their drug-testing results. While doping controls are good, they aren't perfect (see previous post). And it seems unfair to keep a clean athlete with a false positive from seeking appeal simply because the costs of defense have become astronomical. With most pro athletes making much less than folks like Floyd Landis or Marion Jones in her hey day, the fair move seems to be to keep the system as it is.

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