IOC Comes In for a Hard Landing

The International Olympic Committee’s World Conference on Doping in Sport reached its inevitable conclusion Thursday, producing a declaration so watered down by internal bickering and personal agendas that it was amazing the ink was still visible.

Caving in to the powerful international soccer and cycling federations, the IOC backed down from its demand for a minimum two-year ban for a serious first-time offense and settled instead for a flexible sanction that, as IOC Vice President Keba Mbaye worded it, could be “less than the minimum.”

FIFA and UCI, the international governing bodies of soccer and cycling, had argued aggressively--and effectively--that a hard two-year sanction would result in an epidemic of litigation and would be all but impossible to enforce in civil courts.

Thus, the IOC compromise, as stated in Section 3 of the declaration:

“The minimum required sanction for major doping substances of prohibited methods shall be a suspension of the athlete from all competition for a period of two years for a first offence. However, based on specific, exceptional circumstances to be evaluated in the first instance by competent (international federation) bodies, there may be a provision for a possible modification of the two-year sanction.”

IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch brought down his gavel and pronounced the declaration “a great victory for clean sport,” but as soon as the auditorium doors opened, disappointed conference delegates were voicing their exception to the exceptional circumstances.

“The credibility of the movement could be called into question by ‘exceptional circumstances,’ ” said Mark Sisson of the International Triathlon Union. “It seems that the fear of being sued was driving this entire conference. I understand that rationale, but I refuse to accept it.”

Wade Exum, director of the U.S. Olympic Committee’s drug control agency, said, “The whole sanction issue was treated way too softly. As a drug control official listening to the athletes here--the big voice of the athletes--I felt they were strongly in favor of doping being dealt with seriously. I mean, harshly.

“But this softening of the sanction left a lot of loopholes. It could reduce the whole doping issue to an exercise in finding and taking advantage of loopholes.”

The 15-country European Union refused to accept several points of the declaration and the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand agreed to “reserve a position” on the document.

“We cannot agree with the paragraph on sanctions,” said Tony Banks, British minister of sport. “It is both minimalist and permissive. It undermines the two-year ban.”

Dick Schultz, executive director of the USOC, was amused by Samaranch’s proclamation of a “great victory.”

“We all have a tendency to exaggerate,” Schultz said.

In fact, the actual passage of the declaration, after three days of highly contentious debate, was a telling example of how the IOC conducts business.

After having IOC Director General Francois Carrard read the declaration to the assembly of 560 delegates, Samaranch announced, “With the reservations expressed by various delegates, I ask you to adopt this declaration.

“Agree?”

A ripple of mild applause followed. No show of hands, just a low-level clapping of hands with many members of the audience abstaining.

Samaranch did not ask if anyone disagreed. Flashing a self-satisfied grin, he quickly clacked his gavel and pronounced the declaration passed.

“That’s just the way Franco used to do it,” a veteran foreign correspondent from the United States quipped of the late Spanish dictator for whom Samaranch once worked.

Schultz shook his head in bemusement when later asked about it.

“That was unfortunate,” he said. “But, that’s the way things are done in most international [sports] organizations. This is the IOC’s first stab at democracy. They’ve still got to get used to it.”

The declaration also called for the creation of an international anti-doping agency “to be fully operational for the Games of the XXVII Olympiad in Sydney in 2000.”

Samaranch cited that as the major achievement of the anti-doping summit, but actually, the idea was conceived at the IOC’s meeting in late November.

This conference had intended to move the project forward by adopting an operational charter and naming a panel to oversee the agency. Instead, any possible progress was bogged down in debate over details in what even the IOC admitted was a badly drafted proposal.

So the IOC scheduled another meeting “within three months, to define the structure, mission and financing of the agency.”

In other words, the agency will remain on the drawing board for another three months.

“It was hinted at before the conference that there would be an anti-doping agency in place with a commission named, ready to act,” said Dr. Andrew Pipe of the Canadian Center for Ethics in Sports. “That’s very clearly not happening.”

Sisson said, “I expected a lot more out of this conference. I think a lot of the international federations expected a lot more.”

Instead, he added, the conference was essentially a “talkfest” designed to accomplish little more than preserving the status quo.

If that.