Why are the Olympic Sponsors Not Speaking Out?

September 21, 2018

Paul Melia, CCES president and CEO

Yesterday the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Executive Committee, with full support from the Olympic Movement, voted to reinstate RUSADA despite the fact that the Russian Government has not satisfied the requirements of the WADA-created Roadmap to Code Compliance. Rightly so, this decision was met with massive disapproval by athletes from around the world. As a result of the reinstatement action taken by WADA with the full support of the IOC, the Olympic brand has clearly suffered a significant blow. 

It is now fair to ask - do the Olympics stand for cheating? It seems so, since WADA and the IOC reinstated RUSADA even though they have not met the requirements laid out in WADA’s own Roadmap to Compliance. 

Or do the Olympics stand for clean athletes? Well, no, since WADA and the IOC rejected the views of the many clean athletes who attended WADA’s Global Athlete Forum and encouraged them to uphold all of the provisions in the Roadmap prior to reinstating RUSADA.

I think that the true Olympic values have been exposed by this decision. Now I’m wondering why corporations would want to align their brands with an Olympic sporting culture that condones cheating and betrays the majority of clean athletes that the system purports to serve. The real question is this – why are the IOC’s corporate partners not appalled by this most recent WADA decision? And why are they not speaking out?