LONDON, June 2 (Reuters) – The World Anti-Doping Agency WADA
has issued a revised draft code inserting a proposed Olympic ban
for serious doping offenders from January 2015.
The revision, if left in the final draft to be approved at a
world conference on doping in sport in Johannesburg in November
2013, would mean athletes whose suspension ends before a Winter
or Summer Games could be banned for one Olympic cycle.
The draft will have a third consultation phase between Dec.
1 this year and March 1, 2013. The second phase ended on Friday.
Article 10.15 of the draft code, published on the WADA
website (www.wada-ama.org), is in line with an International
Olympic Committee rule which was outlawed after a Court of
Arbitration for Sport (CAS) hearing last year.
That IOC ruling had excluded athletes banned for six months
or more from the next Olympics.
The British Olympic Association (BOA) also lost a recent CAS
hearing over its controversial by-law imposing a lifetime
Olympic ban on British athletes failing dope tests.
The BOA had argued that the existing two-year sanction was
an insufficient deterrent.
The CAS ruling cleared the way for British athletes with
previous convictions, such as sprinter Dwain Chambers and
cyclist David Millar, to be considered for selection for the
London Olympics starting next month.
The revised WADA code says that, in certain circumstances,
as an additional sanction an athlete “shall be ineligible to
participate in the next Summer Olympic Games and the next Winter
Olympic Games taking place after the end of the period of
ineligibility otherwise imposed.”
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Alison Wildey)
