IOC president says war against doping can't be won

The president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach, says doping will always happen. “This is one of the wars you cannot win,” he said in an interview with CNN.

Asked whether this meant the organisation would look to introduce tougher anti-doping measures, he answered: “This is up to the World Anti-Doping Agency. The IOC only has only the responsibility to have the doping tests and sanctions on the occasion of the Olympic Games.”

Nevertheless, he points to the introduction of the International Testing Agency, which operates independently of the IOC and the delegation of all sanctioning to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

“We hope that more and more international sports will follow this example to make it very clear that there cannot even be the perception of a conflict of interest.”

In cycling, the Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation (CADF) is independent of the UCI, while Legal Anti-Doping Services (LADS) takes responsibility for the procedure that may or may not result in a sanction.

Speaking in 2015, Bach said that he thought cycling was now ‘on the right track’ as far as doping was concerned.

“The biggest danger is not that the cheat is being caught and that we have a doping case. The biggest danger is that with every doping case there is a suspicion being shed on the clean athletes.”