Jun 3, 2016
Wickenheiser demands more protection for clean athletes against drug cheats
Canadian hockey legend and International Olympic Committee member Hayley Wickenheiser sat down with TSN.ca this week to talk about her participation in Canadian Tire's Jumpstart program, the upcoming Rio Olympics and what more can be done in the face of state-sponsored doping.
TSN.ca Staff
On the heels of yet another international doping probe prior to August’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, International Olympic Committee member Hayley Wickenheiser is voicing her frustration.
“The athletes of the world are speaking loud and clear that they’re losing faith in the IOC and WADA (World Anti-Doping Authority) and the protection of clean athletes,” the five-time Olympian and four-time gold medalist told TSN.ca.
A report released on Wednesday revealed that the IOC would be ramping up their drug-testing programs before the Olympics with a focus on Russia, Mexico and Kenya, three-nations whose anti-doping programs remain non-compliant. To Wickenheiser, this is simply unacceptable.
“They’ve had over two-and-a-half years to become compliant and they’re not at this point,” Wickenheiser said. “What that says to me is that WADA doesn’t have enough power to ensure that these nations are compliant. So I think we need an independent organization that can really police, punish and implement these regulations because clearly the system we have is not effective. It’s not able to act fast enough.”
Last month, a New York Times report peeled back the curtain on a state-sponsored doping scandal in Russia that implicated at least 15 medal winners at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. For Wickenheiser, there needs to be a more concerted effort from world bodies to ensure this type of activity is snuffed out, and that starts with more transparency.
“If what we see coming out of the Sochi report is state-sponsored doping, then we as the clean athletes of the world want harsh sanctions and the strictest of punishments provided at a state-wide level,” Wickenheiser said. “From a transparency perspective, we believe as the athletes of the world that the chair of WADA and the Athlete’s Commission for the IOC, Beckie Scott and Claudia Bokel, should be present when the samples are tested. There should be media to film that this procedure was fair and it should be reported to the world openly and accurately. That’s what we’re really pushing for moving forward and we hope that the IOC has the interests of the athletes at hand and the athletes are telling them what they want for the Olympic Games to work.”
While anti-doping concerns persist, they certainly don’t encompass all of the potential issues heading into Rio. There is political unrest in Brazil with president Dilma Rousseff being impeached last month. The building of a number of venues has yet to be completed. Then, there is the spectre of the mosquito-borne Zika virus hanging over the proceedings. Still, Wickenheiser remains undeterred and staunchly believes the Games will be a success.
“When you go into an Olympic Games, there’s always one issue that becomes blown out of proportion,” Wickenheiser says. “It was the security in Sochi. It was the climate in Beijing. You name it, and they all seem to work out. From that perspective, I’m not concerned about Zika or any of the other [problems], but I am concerned about a level playing field for clean athletes.”
The 37-year-old native of Shaunavon, Sask., was in Toronto to promote a cause near and dear to her and ties in with her IOC pursuits: Canadian Tire’s Jumpstart initiative for which Wickenheiser serves as an ambassador.
The Jumpstart program, launched in 2005, helps cover the costs associated with equipment, registration and transportation fees to help under-privileged families enroll their children in sports. In 2015 alone, over 206,000 kids across the country benefited from the program with $20 million being disbursed.
For Wickenheiser, getting involved with the program was a no-brainer.
“There are a lot of barriers for entry into sports for kids and families, with hockey being one of the most expensive sports to get involved with,” Wickenheiser said. “So Jumpstart really comes along and says to families, ‘If you can’t afford the registration, the equipment or the fees, we’re here to help.’ No Canadian child that has ever met their criteria has ever been denied support from Jumpstart, so they’re able to meet the needs of everybody who’s applied.”
Wickenheiser notes that the financial disparity that can keep kids out of sport can have a trickle-down effect when it comes to the calibre of athlete Canada is able to produce, especially when it comes to hockey.
“That’s the danger that I see in the game of hockey,” Wickenheiser says. “It’s becoming more of a ‘have’ sport in the sense that kids are playing hockey year-round and it’s expensive. There are spring leagues and summer tournaments. Skates cost $800 a pair. Sticks are $300. It’s not cheap to play the game and for sure we’re missing out on thousands of kids and future Olympians and NHL players, just because their families can’t afford it.”
As for current Olympic athletes like the ones about to journey to Brazil, Wickenheiser believes that greater public awareness of them and their sports could only be beneficial for the Canadian medal count down the road. For the Canadian public, the Olympics are often an out-of-sight, out-of-mind proposition that only pops up on the cultural radar every four years. Wickenheiser would like to see that change, but that won’t happen overnight.
“We need to change the collective culture of the nation,” Wickenheiser says. “Like when I talk about Jumpstart, for example, creating sporting culture in this nation is a big part of it is following it at the elite levels. So if younger families and kids are inclined to be involved in many different sports than, say, just hockey and soccer and they understand these other sports and they’re active in their lives, then they’re more apt to follow and cheer on these athletes.”
When it comes to August’s Olympics, Canada’s aim is to better the one gold it won in 2012 at the London Games (Rosie MacLennan in trampoline). While Canada won only 18 medals in London, Wickenheiser stresses it’s important to keep performances in perspective.
“I think we have to set a context,” Wickenheiser said. “Our athletes are competing against maybe two or three hundred athletes of the same calibre, so to have a top-10 finish is a significant accomplishment for many sports.”
Improvement, then, can’t happen without proper investment, but you’re left with a catch-22 scenario. Success breeds success, but how does that happen without the initial buy-in?
“We need to raise the bar in the way we think about summer sport in this country to the extent that we should be expecting medals from our Canadian athletes and we should be funding our athletes to get those medals,” Wickenheiser said. “If we expect our athletes to win, then we need to help them along the way to be able to win and a big part of that comes down to exposure and funding.”
Canada’s next exposure on the world stage, the XXXIII Olympiad, gets underway on August 5.