The Establishment of the World Anti-Doping Agency

2008/09/01 by Dag Vidar Hanstad, Andy Smith, Ivan Waddington · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Doping in Sports #Sport and Mega-Event Impacts #Sports, Gender, and Society

paper · doi:10.1177/1012690208100552

openalex publication_date 2008/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25

Abstract

This article examines the circumstances surrounding the establishment of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which was established following the World Conference on Doping in Sport convened by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and held in Lausanne in 1999. More specifically, the article draws upon Elias's game models to analyse: i) the way in which the IOC sought to manage this process of change in such a way that its longstanding position as the world's leading anti-doping organization would be reinforced; and ii) the IOC's inability to control this process, with the result that the IOC failed to achieve any of its objectives, its position as the world's anti-doping organization was actually undermined, and world leadership passed to a new organization which had a significant measure of independence from the IOC.

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• Sex, drugs and science: the IOC’s and IAAF’s attempts to control fairness in sport

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