Observers at the World Deaf Short Course Swimming Championships are wondering why the event organisers have not arranged anti-doping testing for the swimmers whilst also declaring the IDBF of non-compliance.
Christof Niklaus, former ICSD Technical Director for Football has been observing events at the 1st World Deaf Short Course Swimming Championships taking place in Poland this week and he has reported his concerns to WADA (World Anti Doping Agency) because there have been no doping tests.
Christof is at the event as GB’s technical officer supporting swimmer Nathan Young. His complaint comes as the ICSD has released a statement this week declaring DIBF (Deaf International Basketball Federation) non-compliant with the World Anti-Doping Code. This means that players and officials of the DIBF are not allowed to hold office or take part in competitions (regional and international) until they make arrangement to meet WADA requirements.
What is worrying Christof is that the Russian swimmers are ‘dominating in all events with no testing to provide confidence in their performances’
The question is how ICSD can remain compliant to the WADA code if it is allowing a sanctioned event to take place without doping testing. ICSD’s lack of control and compliance is due to its lack of support to Deaf sport federations with ‘historical under-resourcing and under-education.’
A WADA representative has quickly responded to Christof by email ‘we are fully committed to supporting DIBF, and ICSD, in making sure that the protection of clean deaf athletes is safeguarded, and strengthen if needed, at all times.’
Christof is picking up ‘word here in Poland of collusion between ICSD and Russia, to avoid having the Russian team be the subject of anti-doping tests.’ He has asked WADA to pass this information on to its own Intelligence & Investigations team. There remains a serious conflict of interest as the ICSD Executive Officer Dmitry Rebrov also remains Secretary General of the All-Russian Sports Federation of Deaf Sport.
WADA sent another reply to this news ‘Your email has been taken very seriously and already been forwarded to the relevant departments of WADA for follow up. We are also following up very closely the situation at DIBF which has been provided all the necessary support over the past few months.’
Christof’s role in Poland is to function as official support and representative for GB’s only entrant Nathan Young who has been sharing his frustrations that there is still a lack of performance funding for Deaflympic athletes in the UK and blames the DCMS, Sport England and UK Sport for ignoring them.
(Photo by Christof Niklaus)
Two Big Ears 
No more than one hour ago, at the technical meeting, I asked Gustavo the ICSD interim president if he could explain why there was no antidoping at this championships to which he replied to email ICSD office.
I asked again because he is the ICSD Representative at these championships and therefore should answer my question. He then blamed Poland Organising Committee for not organising antidoping tests.
A very poor president not fit for office.
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Russian swimmers in the past was doping
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Hello Carola, yes it is true that deaf swimmers have been caught in the past. This article is concerned that the ICSD have sanctioned a World Championships that appears to have no anti-doping arrangements and this does not help all the swimmers and especially those from nations whose athletes have been caught previously as we cannot prove that they are swimming clean, so the concerns will remain until things can be proven with testing.
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Not only that, all Russians use illegal doping as well as cheat on audiograms. People all over the world are taking advantage of the deaf and cheating the audiogram. ICSD still don’t do anything. This’s sad thing.
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