FINA President Julio Maglione Criticizes WADA

Photo Courtesy: FINA Kazan2015

Yesterday FINA announced that seven Russian swimmers would not be eligible to swim in Rio, in response to the IOC’s decision to making doping bans the responsibility of International Federations.

Today, FINA President Julio Maglione expressed his unhappiness with the McLaren Report and WADA to Sputnik News. Despite what he views as overstepping by WADA, he did note that he thinks the IOC made a fair decision.

Maglione said,

“Its [commission] members exceeded their powers. For me WADA, and sooner or later this needs to be clarified, is an organization with a function to control the doping abuse, approve the relevant rules and not talk about the situation in a particular country, it must be done by the head of the Olympic Games, that is by the International Olympic Committee.”

The Report revealed systematic Russian doping, and in response WADA recommended that Russia be banned from the Olympic Games (among other measures).

Read more from Sputnik News here.

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Donald P. Spellman

7 years ago

Dear FINA,
Stop trying to be so much like FIFA.

Sincerely,
Swim Coaches from All Over

Mindy Dougherty

7 years ago

Less than 2 weeks before the games? This is a joke..banned? Not banned? Reinstated, then banned again..a country? Individuals? The Report coming out just weeks before the games..really? Even the clean athletes from Russia will be tainted..Wada, Fina, IOC, all in the mix, but who has the final say? Who makes decisions, and why is swimming world reporting ” leaks” fueling the fire with comments like ” we heard from a source ” that Russia would be banned as a country..what we have learned is that the system is broken ..in country testing is broken. .and everyone’s house needs to be cleaned..and no it ain’t gonna happen at midnight before the games. .let the blame begin..oops..let the games begin!

David Abineri

7 years ago

I believe the opposite if the sport is to be cleaned up and kept clean.

There should be a web site, open to all, indicating when each athlete was tested, if the athlete missed a test, if somehow the test was prevented from occurring, and the results of the test . The same for any needed or requested re-tests. All possible false positives along with re-tests should also be shown.

This should all happen as accurately and rapidly as is possible and is the responsibility of each sport’s administrative group.

The same, by the way, should be true of FINA’s (for example) finances. Every ‘dollar’ coming in and every ‘dollar’ being spent should be reported on an open web side since FINA is a group that is supposed to be SERVING the swimming community. All swimmers and coaches and anyone interested should see EXACTLY how the funds are being used since the goal is to SERVE SWIMMING.

The same should be true for USA SWIMMING and each Local Swimming Committee since they are all all serving swimming.

If this is not done, how to we know that swimming is being served as it should be?

Would the soccer fiasco have been avoided with such total transparency? I don’t know but it would have helped I believe.

David Abineri

Michael Lawrence

7 years ago

Reply to David Abineri

here’s a start … http://www.fina.org/content/statistics-2016 … https://www.wada-ama.org/en/anti-doping-statistics

it doesn’t give you everything you mentioned but it’s a start

Tuskan

7 years ago

hey hey! Do u realize that “Sputnik News” is Putin’s fake-news-agency? There is no one source of this ‘news’

Peter Scott

7 years ago

Quite simply people like this are not up to the job that they have. All of this can be sorted if they quite simply place in the Olympic charter the following: ” The Olympics are for clean athletes only if you test positive for a band substance then you are not eligible for the Olympic Games” thus no need for all this buck passing nonsense. The number of positives (doping) will be reduced. Thus if you test positive you will never be able to compete at the Olympics period. Clear cut message that even the dopes in power can implement if they so desire. The question is do they desire it? Obviously not! FINA giving ‘man of the meet’ at World championships to a doper. Giving Putin award for contribution to swimming! Yes the Russian President. What exactly has he done??? Given of his personal time and money to promote swimming is he a coach, official??? No he is the head of a government which is now implicated in state doping and cover up! Are FINA standing up and asking for the award back???? No they are criticising WADA etc. FINA should stand up and demand that all clean Athletes be protected and state: ” there is no place for doping at any level of sport and if you are caught then you will no longer be eligible for Olympics now or in the future”. This is called getting it sorted and doing the right thing something that the dopes in power can’t quite understand. Sickening!!!

Lance Cansdale

7 years ago

So ouch of touch with the REALITY of our sport and its members. Swimmers and Coaches, it’s time to move on!!