ABSTRACT

The most significant development in anti-doping policies in sport in recent years has, without doubt, been the establishment of the World AntiDoping Agency (WADA), which was set up following the World Conference on Doping in Sport convened by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and held in Lausanne in 1999. The object of this chapter is to examine the circumstances surrounding the establishment of WADA. More specifically, the chapter will draw upon Elias’s game models to analyze: (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 its position as the world’s leading antidoping organization was actually undermined, and world leadership passed to a new organization which had a significant measure of independence from the IOC.