FairSport Statement in Support of the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act
Washington, D.C., July 26, 2018 — FairSport is an independent foundation dedicated to eradicating cheating in sport, supporting whistleblowers who speak out to unmask doping fraud and educating the world at large about the civic value of integrity in sport. Recent events have made evident that doping fraud in international sporting competitions is rampant, and forms a critical component in campaigns of political aggression and interference on the world stage.
The Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act (RADA), introduced to Congress on June 12, 2018, has the potential to hold cheaters, whether individuals, federations, corporations or state actors, accountable for their actions, delivering justice to athletes whose dreams have been stolen, and to corporate sponsors and the public who have been defrauded by the criminal act of doping. RADA also provides protections to the sources whose truth and bravery is indispensable in achieving reform in world sport. Whistleblowers such as Dr. Rodchenkov make choices that are life-threatening. Many will live in fear, separated from their families and hunted for the rest of their lives. They must be supported and protected in the public interest of transparency and progress.
RADA will make it a criminal offense in the U.S. to participate in doping fraud or to administer performance enhancing drugs and a criminal offense to take action against any individual in retaliation for the disclosure of evidence of doping fraud. “Doping fraud” is defined in the bill as “the use of any performance-enhancing drug to gain an unfair competitive advantage in sports, thereby defrauding athletes who are not using performance-enhancing drugs.”
Jim Swartz, Co-Founder of FairSport, states, “The Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act will finally hold the fraudulent actors of world sport to account. This law will bring justice to clean athletes and long-overdue legal remedies to whistleblowers who have suffered retaliation. The Helsinki Commission has been a formidable force for good in its stewardship of the Global Magnitsky Act, and this legislation holds the promise to right the wrongs of doping here in the U.S. while serving as an international model for legislative reform.”
FairSport commends the Helsinki Commission and its Commissioners Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (TX-18) and Rep. Michael Burgess, M.D., (TX-26) along with Commissioners Rep. Gwen Moore (WI-04) and Rep. Steve Cohen (TN-09), who cosponsored the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act, for recognizing the bravery of whistleblowers with this historic legislation that has the potential to hold the perpetrators of doping fraud to account for their actions.
View the congressional hearing The State of Play: Globalized Corruption, State-Run Doping, and International Sport.