IBAF hires anti-doping manager
olympicbaseball December 21st, 2007
For International Baseball Federation (IBAF) and World of Baseball, performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) is always a serious issue for them being knock out from London 2012, to persuade Olympics Authority, they start to do as much as they can, and recently IBAF has hired a new anti-doping manager of its campaign to win reinstatement as an Olympic sport.
The one they choose is Nicki Vance, who is an Australian who has nearly 20 years of experience in the field, including a year’s stint at the World Anti-Doping Agency.
IBAF president Harvey Schiller said the federation needed a full-time anti-doping specilalist heading into the 2008 Beijing Olympics. “Our goal is to establish a leadership position in education and testing to eliminate the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport,” he said in a statement.
The hiring follows last week’s release of the Mitchell Report in the United States on the use of performance-enhancing substances in major league baseball.
“Like a lot of sports that are on the Olympic program the professional leagues don’t come under the control of the federation,” Schiller said. “I believe we will be able to set a standard for all sports that have professional organizations associated with them.”
Good news is IBAF conducted 24 drug tests on the four teams at the Asian Championships and Olympic qualifier in Taiwan earlier this month, and All came back negative. However, they are all Asian, which is less influence or almost none effect or related to the Steroid Storm with Mitchell Report.
The doping problem in professional baseball — and lack of rigorous testing and sanctions — was a factor in the sport’s exclusion from the Olympics. Baseball was voted off the Olympic program by the IOC in 2005. It will be part of the Beijing Games but not the 2012 London Olympics. Baseball and softball are lobbying to be reinstated for the 2016 Olympics.
Hope this step is a Giant one to help baseball back to Olympics.
