Paris on track for 2024 Olympics, says mayor

PARIS, France -- Paris is on time and on budget for the 2024 Olympics, the city's mayor said on Tuesday, dismissing concern expressed recently by a senior Olympics official.

"Look at all the previous Olympics and Paralympics around the world, one year before the Games, generally it's stressful and people are saying 'we'll never manage this'. Well, we're ready," mayor Anne Hidalgo told the France Inter radio station on Tuesday.

"We're on budget and we're on time."

During a visit to Paris on Monday, International Olympic Committee (IOC) official Pierre-Olivier Beckers, who is responsible for monitoring the Paris Games, voiced concern about the work needed to balance the budget.

French authorities chipped in another 111 million euros ($119 million) last December to take into account inflation, taking the overall budget to 4.48 billion euros.

Delays in signing major sponsorship deals, including with French luxury goods giant LVMH, has also left a major question mark about the finances of the event.

"There is still plenty of work to do," Beckers told reporters.

A provisional report from the French national auditor, revealed by Le Monde newspaper on Monday, said that "substantial uncertainties remain, notably for domestic partnerships."

The Games have also become embroiled in a row over ticket pricing, with the high cost of attending many events leading to criticism of organizers amid a cost-of-living crisis in France.

Agence France-Presse

Phelps urges U.S. lawmakers to push for anti-doping reform

WASHINGTON - Michael Phelps urged U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday to push for a reform of the global anti-doping effort in sport after a career in which the Olympic great said he was never confident he was competing against clean athletes.

Testifying in front of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Finance, the most decorated Olympian expressed his frustration at the lack of progress in the battle against the use of performance enhancing drugs in sport.

"I don't believe I've stood up at an international competition and the rest of the field has been clean," said Phelps, whose Olympic haul includes 23 gold medals. "I don't think I've ever felt that. I know when I do stand up in the U.S. I know we're all clean because we go through the same thing.

"Throughout my career I have though that some athletes were cheating and in some cases those suspicions were confirmed.

"Given all the testing I and others have been through, I have a hard time understanding this."

  
Phelps was joined at the hearing by Athens Summer Games shot put gold medalist Adam Nelson who waited nine years to receive his medal after Ukraine's Yuri Belonog was stripped of his gold following a failed drugs test.

Nelson delivered an emotional account as he recalled the day he received his gold medal while at a food court in the Atlanta airport from a U.S. Olympic Committee official who was there changing planes.

"The medal came with a side of fries and a free toy. Don't worry about it." Nelson joked. "It was nine years after that moment had passed.

"The color and timing of a medal matter, folks. Silver does not hold the same value and gold loses its shine over time."

U.S. Anti-Doping Agency chief executive Travis Tygart, who has called for stronger sanctions against Russian athletes after investigations uncovered evidence of state sponsored doping, used the stage to once again blast the International Olympic Committee for refusing to get tough on dopers.

Ignoring calls to ban Russia from the Rio Olympics, the IOC left it up to individual sport governing bodies to determine if Russian athletes should be allowed to compete in last year's Rio Summer Games.

"At least two Olympic Games were corrupted and at the Rio Games this past August scores of Russian athletes were allowed to compete without credible anti-doping measures," said Tygart.

"When the moment came, despite mountains of evidence and vocal opposition from anti-doping leaders and clean athletes from around the world, the IOC chose to welcome the Russian Olympic Committee to Rio."

IOC President Thomas Bach declined an invitation to attend Tuesday's hearing.

The U.S. government provides funding for the World Anti-Doping Agency budget and the House committee may make recommendations on any funding increases they feel are may be needed to improve the current system.

(Editing by Steve Keating and Frank Pingue)

source: news.abs-cbn.com

High-stakes summit eyes anti-doping overhaul

LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND -- After a Russian doping scandal plunged the Olympic movement into one of its worst crises, top figures in world sport meet on Saturday in a bid to overhaul global drug testing.

Relations between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the body it created to promote clean competition, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), hit historic lows ahead of this summer's Rio Games.

Some IOC leaders accused WADA of reacting too slowly to evidence that Russia was running a massive state-sponsored doping programme and questioned the agency's governance.

WADA countered that it has been left dangerously under-resourced.

Saturday's summit in Lausanne, Switzerland is an effort to turn the page and forge "a more robust, more efficient and more independent worldwide anti-doping system," an IOC statement said.

Olympic chief Thomas Bach will huddle behind closed doors with the head of the world athletics governing body (IAAF) Sebastian Coe, FIFA boss Gianni Infantino and WADA president Craig Reedie.

The heads of the Russian, American and Chinese Olympic committees will also be on hand.

Bach will hold a conference call with reporters at 2:30 pm (1230 GMT) to discuss the summit's outcomes, but the prospects for concrete decisions are uncertain.

WHAT DOES THE IOC WANT?

Currently, anti-doping controls are run by individual sports federations, with WADA overseeing global compliance -- essentially trying to ensure that federations follow a broad set of rules.

Bach has said unequivocally that the IOC wants testing to be removed from the federations' hands to do away with a system that is ripe for conflicts of interest.

What that means for WADA's future is not entirely clear.

In October 2015, before the Russia scandal exploded, the IOC floated the idea that global testing could be taken over by an independent body.

It seemed logical to some that a beefed-up WADA could assume responsibility for drug controls across all sports, but months of acrimony and accusations have clouded the situation.

Aside from the Russia doping crisis that saw dozens of its competitors banned from Rio, WADA's integrity took a further hit when hackers seemingly intent on exposing perceived double standards leaked WADA medical records of more than 100 top global athletes.

The hack was carried out by a group calling itself "Fancy Bears", believed to be Russian, and revealed which banned medications major stars were legitimately taking under so-called "therapeutic use exemptions" (TUEs).

WADA's difficulties and its tensions with the IOC fuelled suggestions that a new entity could be created to oversee testing.

Asked about the expectations for Saturday's talks, Bach told AFP that the IOC "will make some constructive proposals", underscoring that Olympic leaders were already looking at overhauling anti-doping measures "well before" the latest crises came to light.

Bach has also backed reforms that would see the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) decide on penalties for anyone caught cheating. At present, sanctions are decided by the sports themselves with CAS only hearing appeals.

Bach argues that letting a single court punish dopers in all sports would improve transparency and save money.

- WADA confident -
WADA, established in 1999, is 50 percent funded by the IOC.

But despite simmering tensions with its powerful parent WADA officials have predicted that the agency will remain a strong presence in the intensifying fight for clean sport.

"I do not think that the situation is critical for WADA," its director general Olivier Niggli said last month.

Highlighting the agency's essential role, he stressed it was WADA that commissioned the bombshell report on Russian doping, unveiling perhaps the largest cheating scandal in Olympic history.

That report, led by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren, is due to be published in full in the coming weeks.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

USADA wants blanket ban on Russian athletes in Rio

The United States and Canadian Anti-Doping Agencies want a complete ban on Russia competing at the Rio Olympics after next week's key report into allegations of state-backed doping at the 2014 Sochi winter Olympics is published, according to a leaked draft letter seen by Reuters on Saturday.

Russia's track and field athletes are already banned from competing at next month's Olympics by the world governing International Association of Athletics' Federations (IAAF) over widespread doping in the sport.

In the draft letter addressed to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which will be sent once the report into Sochi led by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren is presented on Monday, United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart calls for a ban on all Russian athletes, not just in track and field.

"We write on behalf of a community of clean athletes and anti-doping organizations with faith that the IOC can lead the way forward by upholding the principles of Olympism," said the draft letter signed by Tygart and Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports (CCES) CEO Paul Melia.

"Therefore, consistent with the Principles, Charter and Code we request that the IOC Executive Board take the action to suspend the Russian Olympic and Paralympic Committee from participating in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

"The only appropriate, and permissible, course of action in these unprecedented circumstances is for the IOC to immediately suspend the Russian Olympic and Paralympic Committees from the Olympic Movement.... and declare that no athlete can represent Russia at the Rio Olympic Games."

USADA and CCES were not immediately available to comment.

The draft letter has also been circulated to the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) Athlete Committee members by Canada's Beckie Scott, who chairs the committee, asking whether they agree to support it.

"The letter outlines a basis for suspension of the Russian NOC (National Olympic Committee) from Rio, in light of the evidence and information that will come as a result of this report, and aligns very much with the position we have taken so far in this (long) process," Scott wrote in an e-mail dated July 16.

"You will also note that it presents a caveat - much as with the IAAF decision - to permit athletes who have lived outside the regime, been subject to strict doing controls, etc, to still compete in Rio."

IOC President Thomas Bach said last month that individual Russian track and field athletes assessed as clean would be able to compete for their country in Brazil.

WADA set up an investigation under McLaren to the probe allegations of state-backed doping at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; Editing by Ken Ferris)

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com