Sir Craig Reedie has faced some mighty challenges in his career.
Most recently, he was a key member of the team which earned London the right to host the Olympic Games and then deliver an overwhelmingly successful event last summer. Yet that was child's play compared to the challenge he faces now. On Friday, Reedie was confirmed as the next president of the World Anti-Doping Association and will take up the post on January 1, when John Fahey stands down.
Reedie will head the global organisation in one of the most testing times that sport has had. When the Scot secured the nomination to become president in August, he admitted that the task was "daunting" but he is still optimistic that, under his tenure, progress can be made in halting the cheats who threaten to ruin the credibility of sport.
"From my point of view, we need to get everybody to understand that this is a very real issue; it's not going to go away so we have to deal with it," Reedie said. "Olympic sport doesn't seem to have a major match-fixing or illegal betting issue but there is a clear problem that some athletes still cheat, and we must protect the clean athletes."
Two words peppered Reedie's rhetoric: education and efficiency. "Ideally education will cure all ills," he said. "The WADA code already presents an obligation on signatories to run education programmes and most do, we just have to do it better. We have to reach all of the athletes all of the time."
Yet it is with testing that the most rapid progress can be made by WADA. It is safe to assume that any athlete who dopes does so on the assumption that he or she will not be caught and Reedie feels that testing must be used more intelligently in order to get the highest possible success rate. "We have to look for quality testing rather than quantity," he said. "We may need to become more involved in investigations and use intelligence in order to identify where there are issues. Then we can advise federations where they should target their testing. It would be described as strategic intelligence. Some do it well, others less well."
The issue of efficiency is even more critical in these times of austerity. WADA's annual budget is around $28m, an amount that Fahey has called "insufficient", adding that a lack of money was hampering the fight against doping in sport. It is not an inconsiderable sum but, when you consider that Lance Armstrong alone allegedly paid doctor Michele Ferrari upwards of $1m for his own doping regime then WADA's budget to police all of sport seems paltry.
Reedie is realistic as to the demands placed on the organisation during these testing financial times. "The whole anti-doping movement needs more money but we can't just walk away," he said. "We have to be smarter, more clever and more efficient, which may result in us being able to do less tests but achieve the same ends."
Biological passports, which monitor an athlete's biological parameters and highlights irregularities which may be a result of doping, are becoming more widespread. Reedie would like more blood testing to be done than is carried out at present but the constant accusation is that the testers are trailing behind the dopers when it comes to science.
He disputes that this is exclusively the case, saying: "In some cases this may be true but in other cases, it is not. For example, a test for a new substance called CERA, a type of EPO, was developed and WADA was informed but didn't tell anyone. When samples were tested, CERA was detected and the athletes didn't even know we could test for it."
Some of the most high-profile testing in recent months has involved Jamaica, firstly for a spate of failed drugs tests which included the former 100m world-record holder Asafa Powell testing positive, and then as the focus of a WADA investigation into the country's drugs-testing programme. "I am a glass-half-full guy and, while more positive tests are clearly regrettable in one sense, it is rather encouraging in another that the athletes are actually being caught and sanctioned," said Reedie. "Absolutely, there must be cooperation between the Jamaican anti-doping authorities and the governing bodies of each sport."
When it comes to hosting major championships, many argue that countries with a poor doping record should not be afforded the privilege. Reedie disputes this, contending that the incentive of hosting a major tournament can act as a catalyst for improvements in a nation's anti-doping system. "Spain produced proper anti-doping legislation as a result of their 2020 Olympic bid and it could be argued that Sochi hosting the Winter Olympics next year has encouraged Russia to improve their system," he said.
Reedie and WADA certainly face a challenge in dispelling the public's despondency towards sport and restoring faith in outstanding sporting performances, which are often met with suspicion. "You're looking for utopia and that's hard to deliver in any aspect of life," he said. "But the ideal situation is for people to believe that sport is fair and when athletes prove that not to be the case then somebody will jump on them." And so, for Reedie, let battle commence.
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