WADA critic Tygart should get his own house in order: Reedie

WADA president Craig Reedie launched a broadside at one of his most virulent critics on Thursday, saying US anti-doping agency chief Travis Tygart should get his own house in order. Reedie came out fighting at a WADA symposium at Lord's Cricket Ground in London after weeks of taking withering fire since their executive committee in September voted to lift the ban on the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) if they fulfilled two conditions. The 77-year-old Scotsman says one has already been honoured -- accepting responsibility for the doping scandal that rocked the sporting world. The other, with a December 31 deadline set by WADA, is to grant an independent panel access to the data in a Moscow laboratory, though he firmly believes they will deliver on that too. RUSADA was initially suspended by WADA in 2016 after an independent report by Richard McLaren found that more than 1,000 athletes across more than 30 sports were aided by state-sponsored doping. It is Tygart's criticisms that have especially exercised veteran sports politics administrator Reedie, who was pivotal in London overcoming favourites Paris to secure the 2012 Olympics and the successful hosting of them. Reedie, who will step down in November next year after two terms in office, told AFP that Tygart would be well advised to look at tackling drug testing in the major US sports which although some are Olympic sports are not compliant (. "I mean it is commented on by a number of people regularly," he said. "I think that the US Anti-Doping Agency might be well served by going and speaking to the players' unions in the professional sports in the USA just to get them to understand perhaps clean sport would benefit hugely if they all became code-compliant. "It's not going to be easy, but somebody has to start somewhere and somebody has to do something about it, and that's rather a gap in their (USADA) portfolio of work." Reedie, who says those accusing him of being too close to the International Olympic Committee as a veteran member should recall the flak he has undergone from them in the past two years over the Russia scandal, admitted the persistent criticism by Tygart and USADA has been an "irritation". "I have to say as far as USADA is concerned, it's pretty repetitive stuff," he said. "It's foxes guarding hen houses. That is not the situation. It's a clever use of language but it represents his view and represents, only a small selective group of National Anti-Doping Organisations (NADO)." - 'Russian issue behind us' - Reedie, who has been involved with WADA since its inception in 1999, says Tygart seems to think there is only one voice in the world -- the United States. "They (the Americans) have to understand surely that the world operates on regulations, agreed regulation, it happens as far as we are concerned in anti-doping," he said. "As far as sport is concerned, the Olympic movement are influential, international federations are influential, it is not just the single view of the USA." Reedie, who having been a successful badminton player succeeded in lobbying for it to become an Olympic sport beginning with the 1992 Games, says the Russia saga has taken its toll on him. "The London bid, winning it was a great thrill and organising it was a great thrill, the graph was in an upward direction," he said. "This (Russia), certainly the graph has not been in an upward direction all the time, but it doesn't serve anyone, me or anyone else to walk away from it before my time is finished." Reedie says he has two goals for his final year in office. "The first certainly is to have the Russian issue behind us and secondly is to have ourselves in a suitably financial position," he said. "The reality at the moment is we can handle about 12 percent of what we're asked to handle. "If I can set the organisation along that road then I will be very happy as I head to the golf course."