WADA: US bill could 'shatter the anti-doping system'

The World Anti-Doping Agency sent a letter to U.S. Senators explaining how a bill designed to deter drug cheats in international sports would, instead, "have the unintended consequences of shattering the anti-doping system" if it is passed without changes.

The document, obtained by The Associated Press, was sent this week at the request of a Senate committee that is holding a hearing Wednesday in which it will hear testimony about the Rodchenkov Act.

The House passed the bill last year, and WADA has hired a lobbying firm to engage Congress for changes in the legislation triggered by a Russia cheating scheme that has shaken the global Olympic movement for the past five years.

WADA director general Olivier Niggli told AP that "WADA favors governments using their legislative powers to protect clean athletes in the fight against doping and this Act is no exception."
The six-page WADA letter does, in fact, say the agency "supports the overall objectives of the legislation."
The letter also goes into extensive detail about provisions it says would create a "chaotic World Anti-Doping system with no legal predictability."
It predicted that if the US passes the law, "other nations will follow suit and inevitably competing jurisdiction on the same set of facts will result in confusion, weaken the system, and compromise the quest for clean sport."
In that statement, Rodchenkov's attorney, Jim Walden, said similar laws with extraterritorial jurisdiction weren't always popular "with corrupt nations."
WADA said it was urging a "go-slow" approach to any legislation "authored in revulsion to Russia's cheating."