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In the past few weeks, the IAAF has made significant efforts to correct erroneous and misleading information with respect to its commitment to the fight against doping in athletics, disseminated mainly by some sections of the British media.
The IAAF therefore felt obliged on Friday 14 August, following continuous and persistent comparisons between athletics and cycling – and specifically the IAAF and cycling’s world governing body, the UCI – and the continual misrepresentation in the media of the IAAF answers, to make comments about the financial contributions of both organisations in the fight against doping
To help avoid these comments being misunderstood or misinterpreted, and to also avoid giving offence were none was intended, we wish to elaborate on Friday’s comments and state that the UCI and IAAF anti-doping structures are different and fair comparisons are almost impossible to make.
Since 2008, the UCI has mandated the independent Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation (CADF) to plan and carry out anti-doping in cycling. It is the very nature of the CADF to be not only funded by the UCI, but also by its stakeholders (riders, teams and race organisers). As a consequence, the 2014 annual budget of the CADF was CHF 6.25M and the UCI spent a further CHF 1.2M on results management and the pursuit of cases. This is excluding the one-off CHF 2.25M the UCI spent on the Cycling Independent Reform Commission (CIRC) whose role was to investigate doping in cycling and make recommendations for future policy.
One thing that should be stated clearly is that the IAAF and UCI both play a leading role in the fight against doping and this is acknowledged by the entire sporting movement and the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Under the presidency of Brian Cookson the UCI should be commended for the impressive efforts which have been made to put in place a robust and transparent anti-doping system in cycling.
We regret the attempt by a selected group of media to set Athletics against Cycling, since the IAAF has the greatest respect for the work being done by the UCI in the field of anti-doping.
We wish to reiterate that there is strong collaboration between the two organisations in areas of experience sharing, trend-mapping and general anti-doping intelligence.
We also strongly believe that these two international federations are leaders in the field and should be held up as an example to others in the fight for Clean Sport.
IAAF
