Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAS-CAS)

In the greater analysis, having a centralized Sport Arbitration mechanism is and was a worthy development, and the Court of Arbitration for Sport, sited in Lausanne, Switzerland, has benefited from a series of reforms, since its conception in 1981, under newly-elected Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch, and its inception in the period 1983-1984.

A copy of its History can be found at this link
(click in the right-side column for bookmarked items).

A copy of its Statutes may be found here.

Attention of those who follow Sports Arbitration decisions, such as that taken against Floyd Landis, by the American Arbitration Association hearings in the spring of 2007 and their decision taken at the end of the summer (September 2007), now turns across the ocean to Switzerland, for the final stage of this process.

Sadly, not to be content with the processes that exist and to which it is a Signatory of WADA-AMA, the French Agence Française de Lutte contre le Dopage (AFLD), has announced this week that it will undertake a separate procedure against the Pennsylvanian, for what it states to be a lacune in the USADA procedure of this summer.

That is specifically tied to the long-standing feud between the organisers of the Tour de France, owned by the Amaury Sport Organization, and the direction of the Union Cycliste International, whose promotion of its ProTour concept has chafed Event Managers for its entire existence.
(Teams inscribed as ProTour members are mandatory 'invités' for the three Grand Tours of cycling, which inhibits organizers from selecting teams of a lesser caliber, but with a greater sponsorship and focus on those three countries: Italy, France or Spain)

Thus AFLD proposes that, if the Tour de France is no longer a certified UCI event, but becomes a French Cycling Federation-authorized event, there is a chance that Mr. Landis could have been allowed to race, if he were only banned for two years from UCI-sanctioned events.

So while the world will accept the CAS decision, due between now and mid-February, apparently France needs to reassert its independence, against the principles of this WADA-based, harmonized fight against doping/cheating.

WADAwatch decries the adolescent attitudes that are prevailing, to beat down their opponents, to the great detriment of a massively-popular sport.

WADAwatch urges the WADA Secretariat to wake UP!

There are many significant issues that have been ignored in its hasty and ill-conceived packet of re-drafted Articles, to the WADA CODE, and other associated documents.

Watch! WADA

..........@..........WADAwatch