Former USADA chief executive Travis Tygart to assist JADCO with doping issues
The man who brought down American cyclist Lance Armstrong has been recruited by the World Anti-Doping Agency to tackle Jamaica’s drug testing woes.
Travis Tygart, the former chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, has accepted the challenge of making the anti-doping regime of the world’s leading sprint nation more robust.
USADA tried to do the same four years ago, only for Jamaica to snub its efforts, but the stakes are much higher this time, with the island having been hit by a flurry of failed drug tests.
This led the former head of the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission Renee Ann Shirley to reveal that it had carried out just one out of competition test in the six months before last year’s London Olympics.
Jamaica’s refusal to acknowledge her complaint led WADA to conduct an extraordinary audit of JADCO two weeks ago, after which it asked both UK Anti-Doping and USADA whether they could work with the failed agency to help raise standards there.
UK Anti-Doping was unable to assist due to its involvement in a similar partnership with Belarus, but USADA agreed to try again, despite Tygart’s reservations.
Confirming he would meet the JADCO leadership at the World Conference on Doping in Sport in Johannesburg this week, Tygart said “we are very hopeful that they’re finally serious, actions speak louder than words and now is the time for action”.
”We want to see the WADA code implemented and their athletes deserve better,” Tygart said. ”Right now they’re being let down by their national doping (commission).”
He said the island’s near absence of out-of-competition testing in the first six months of 2012 was ”unacceptable.”
Tygart added USADA was ”ready and willing” to help. He noted that USADA aided its Jamaican counterpart by sending a team there in 2009 and hosting some Jamaican officials at the USADA offices in the United States. But the USADA head warned that it would only work with JADCO if there was a ”concerted effort” by JADCO to improve its anti-doping efforts.
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