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Officials from South Africa’s Ministry of Sport express confidence that they will evade sanctions imposed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) before the impending deadline to align the country’s legislation with the World Anti-Doping Code, as revealed to Reuters.
South Africa must enact the necessary amendments by October 13, failing which they risk being unable to compete under the country’s flag at various events, including the ongoing rugby and cricket World Cups.
“Government is engaging with WADA in relation to our amendment bill and we will provide an update in due course, but there is no way we will be in a situation where our teams will not play under the South African flag,” a sports ministry spokesperson said on Thursday.
Minister of sport Zizi Kodwa said last month the country was committed to making the required amendments to the Act, and that this process is well under way.
“Government is engaging with WADA in relation to our amendment bill and we will provide an update in due course, but there is no way we will be in a situation where our teams will not play under the South African flag,” a sports ministry spokesperson said on Thursday.
Minister of sport Zizi Kodwa said last month the country was committed to making the required amendments to the Act, and that this process is well under way.
“The overwhelming majority of the non-compliant findings by WADA of our current Act are along the lines of, ‘the definition must be updated to reflect the exact wording in the WADA Code’, or some definition or term in the Act is obsolete and no longer used,” SAIDS chief executive Khalid Galant told South Africa’s Daily Maverick newspaper.
“What that means is that the athlete wins a medal or place or prize. But it’s not attributed to Russia. So, in other words, in the country competition, they are not present. That has been the outcome historically, so you can have an athlete who won a bronze medal at the Winter Olympics from Russia. However, this means Russia did not participate in the Winter Olympics. It didn’t win medals, it didn’t come anywhere on the country medal table.
“Now in this case you’ve got two teams already participating in an event, in one of which they’re actually the defending world champions. So the question becomes what does it mean if they’re right to compete under the flag is removed. What that means is entirely in the governing bodies hands to go ‘ok, we get to decide what that means’. Does it mean that 15 individuals are now the Rugby World champions if South Africa win? It’s a very, very difficult question.”
Smith said: “It’s very hard to know what the penalty means because the implications of that really rest with the International Cricket Council. The only precedent we have for this kind of activity, at least that I’m aware of, is the Russian athletes at the Olympics at past Olympics and other global events. This means they’ve participated under a neutral flag and have received individual awards for their performance, but these are not credited to the country.
“So the noncompliance pertains to the text and has no bearing on the operational ability or jurisdictional mandate of SAIDS.”
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