Osaka Rule and Doping at Olympics

Cheaters have caused a lot of harm to the Olympic movement over the past few decades and it is reasonable for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to wish for clean Olympic Games. In the fight against doping the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) set up a system of strict liability on doping offences. The  World Anti-Doping Code  is mandatory for the whole Olympic Movement.

In the fight against doping it is important to make sure that athletes who are accidentally engaged in advertent doping - the no significant fault or negligence category -  are not placed into the same category as athletes involved in intentional doping. The first category of doping 'offenders' should not be punished with a severe sanction (proportionality principle), because the athlete could not, even with the exercise of the utmost caution, reasonably have suspected, that he or she had been administered a prohibited substance. It is extremely difficult for an athlete to prove this because he or she has to prove how the specified substance entered his/her body without intent.

In 2004, Rule 45 of the Olympic Charter was revised to include the phrasing "any entry is subject to acceptance by the IOC, which may at its discretion, at any time, refuse any entry, without indication or grounds. Nobody is entitled to any right of any kind to participate in the Olympic Games." Whereas only National Olympic Committees (NOCs), recognised by the IOC, may enter competitors in the Olympic Games, this Charter revision gave the IOC the ability to prevent athletes from participating in the Olympic Games.

During the 2007 world athletics championships in Osaka, Jacques Rogge, the president of the IOC, proposed the Osaka Rule. The Osaka Rule prohibited any athlete with a doping suspension of greater than six months from competing in the next Olympic Games, even for cases where the athlete's suspension has already been completed. The IOC has claimed it not as a sanction, but as an eligibility rule. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) issued an advisory opinion, at the IOC's request, describing the Osaka Rule as an eligibility rule too. The IOC has no disciplinary jurisdiction to athletes who potentailly might come to the Olympic Games.

In the USOC v. IOC decision {CAS 2011/O/2422  06.10.2011}, the CAS invalidated the Osaka Rule which prevented athletes who committed a  doping offence inadvertently from receiving disproportionately harsh consequences relative to their violation. This decision will allow a significant number of athletes to compete in the 2012 Olympics in London who would otherwise be prohibited from doing so. One of them is British athlete Dwain Chambers (100 m).

The London 2012 anti-doping laboratory has exercised about 6200 doping tests so far, up 400 samples every day. Up to 1 in 2 athletes has been tested at the Olympic Games including every Olympic medallist.

Doping and the fight against it is influenced by new scientific and technological developments. During the ancient Olympics medical plants were used for doping, just after World War II amfetamines were popular in sports too. During the 1968 Olympics in Mexico the first doping controls occured. German Democratic Republic's athletes were famous in using anabolic steroids in the 1980's. Nowadays blooddoping is "in" and gendoping is the future. Topathletes need a bloodpassport and have to let doping authorities know their whereabouts.

Doping controls and doping sanctions will always be necessary in a struggle to keep sport and Olympic Games as clean as possible. The alternative is legalizing doping: athletes will have a responsibility and a choice how far they want to go in ruining their bodies and the spirit of sports.