KINGSTON, Jamaica – The director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency said Wednesday that Jamaican officials need to respond soon to accusations from a former insider who alleges drug-testing procedures are lax.
Writing this week in Sports Illustrated, Renee Anne Shirley, the former executive director of the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission, said the island agency had no shortage of "troubling" problems during her tenure as the top official.
The commission did not have the staff to carry out rigorous anti-doping programs, she wrote, and just one out-of-competition test was done between February 2012 and the start of the London Olympics five months later. When she raised various concerns, no JADCO or Cabinet official would take them seriously and she left the agency in frustration in February.
"The current program — while improved — makes a mockery of Jamaica's posturing and flames suspicion more than it douses it," Shirley wrote in her article for Sports Illustrated.
WADA Director General David Howman said Shirley has raised several "serious issues" that need to be investigated by the Montreal-based organization, although he said the agency was aware that there had been scarce pre-London Games testing done on the island.
He said Jamaica needs to respond to Shirley's statements, which include the revelation that Jamaica had no officer keeping track of athletes so that they could be tested out-of-competition..
Jamaican politicians wasted no time congratulating the nation's sprinters on their dominant performances at the world championships in Moscow — Usain Bolt picked up three more gold medals and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce also won three as the island swept the men's and women's 100, 200 and 4x100 relays — but officials have been largely mum about Shirley's statements this week.
