Category Archives: doping in sport

ICSD Still Employing Rebrov – People ask ‘What is Going on’?

Posted on by
Reply

The global Deaf community has reacted in frustration to the ICSD handling of further misdemeanours by their Russian-based CEO.

Earlier this month, Deaf sports community watchers were alerted to the fact that the ICSD CEO was endorsing and leading Russia’s plans to hold their own government sponsored, ‘Alternative Summer Deaflympics’ because they, along with Belarus are banned from international competitions due to their stance on the illegal invasion of Ukraine.

Nothing wrong with Russia doing their own thing, they have to to everything they can to keep the Russian population in the dark on what’s happening in Ukraine.

But a news video broadcasted on You Tube by Russian Deaf Television, shows Dmitry Rebrov, the employee of the ICSD and supposed guardian of the Deaflympic brand, endorsing the “Alternative Deaflympic Summer Games” in Ufa, Russia.

video created by Russian Deaf TV

Shocked by this blatant disregard for the integrity of Deaf sport, and a claim that Russia intends to invite other nations to participate, the Deaflympic historian Pinchas, shared the story and video on 3rd March asking what ICSD planned to do about it.

On 21st March, ICSD issued a statement that:

“According to our current information, the sports event is organised by the Government of the Russian Federation and the All-Russian Sports federation of Deaf Sport (OSFSG). The sports organisation is not a member of the ICSD. According to the sports federation, the word “Deaflympics” will not be used officially at the event.

The ICSD will not give any form of permission for the use of the word ‘Deaflympics’ and will closely monitor the organisation of the Russian Summer Games of Deaf Athletes “We are Together” and if necessary, take action and take any necessary steps against any possible unlawful use of the word “Deaflympics”.

The statement finished by explaining their actions towards Rebrov: “Mr. Dmitry Rebrov has agreed to refrain from promoting and organising the Summer Games of Deaf Athletes “We are Together Sport”.

Once again, people are feeling that Rebrov brings the ICSD and the Deaflympics into disrepute, and infuriated Deaf people have commented on this direct to ICSD, that stronger action should be taken by the ICSD Board. Indeed how on earth are they going to ‘closely monitor‘ what’s going on in Russia ?

“Imagine if the well known Deaf sports historian did not post (the story) on social media it would have made things worse for ICSD. Why didn’t the ICSD CEO inform ICSD about the alternative Deaflympics in the first place. It sounds very strange and awkward.” Donal Desmond

“While Russian athletes are banned from competing in most international sport, due to multiple state sponsored doping and their highly illegal invasion of Ukraine, ICSD should not be employing a Russian! He has been guilty of audiogram fraud. This undermines ICSD’s efforts to build a good reputation” John Neilson

Of course, Miguel Alejandro and others are wondering “why all the fuss” when we should be promoting and putting Deaf athletes first. But this is seen as ignorant and the lack of concern for the unprofessionalism and disregard shown by Rebrov continues to go unchecked.

The lukewarm reactions by non-Western nations to Russian doping, audiogram frauds, imposter athletes and ICSDs continuance to employ a Russian to oversee Deaf sport and to appoint Russians as Technical Directors etc reflects the geopolitical attitude towards the West that we see in mainstream society and such sentiments are no different in the global Deaf community. Perhaps that explains why Rebrov still has a job and why, as far as we know, the IOC has not yet restored it’s funding and full support to ICSD.

Nations Receive Invites to the 24th Summer Deaflympics.

Posted on by
Reply

National Deaf Sports federations who have been invited to participate will now decide whether or not to send athletes and teams to the next Summer Deaflympics in Brazil.

Immediately after the ICSD Extraordinary Congress in Switzerland last week, The ICSD officially invited all its member nations to take part in the 24th Summer Deaflympics from 1-15 May 2022 in Caxias do Sul, Brazil.

There are 21 sports currently listed on the programme and ICSD President Gustavo Perazzolo writes ‘We look forward to having you come down..’ Perazzolo himself is a former Brazilian Deaflympian in volleyball and cycling.

Official logo 24th Summer Deaflympics

There is an official website for the games https://www.deaflympics2021.com

Questions to be asked

There are questions now facing National Deaf Sports Federations as they decide whether or not to participate in this event. Australia has already had to withdraw due to its government regulations on international travel which are already extended into 2022.

Travel restrictions will make it very expensive if athletes and their officials have to isolate at their own expense on return to their home countries. The outbreak of the new Omicron variant is set to have a severe impact on travel that could last well into 2022.

The state of Rio Grande do Sul does not have its own international airport and athletes will have to use internal flights to reach the local airport further increasing the risk of contamination by the virus and potentially the more transmittable Omicron.

Brazil currently has the second highest number of national recorded deaths due to Covid-19 and questions are being asked if the true number of deaths and cases are being recorded, the country currently at 615,570 deaths and 22.1 million cases nationally. President Jair Bolsonaro has told Brazilians to ‘stop whining‘ and has continued to downplay the virus. Brazil’s Supreme Court has opened an inquiry into claims made by Bolsonaro that Covid-19 vaccines may increase the chance of contracting Aids. One positive note to make in all of this is that the host state has one of the lowest number of deaths and cases so far in Brazil.

The official games website has a page showing some official Travel Insurance available, but neither that nor health insurance will give immunity to a virus – only a vaccine may do that.

For months now, national federation representatives have been asking the Deaflympic organisers to show that they are making arrangements to protect athletes from the virus as well as ensuring that the event will also have stringent Anti-doping checks and Audiogram checks in place.

Concerns about anti-doping and audiogram checks are long-standing as the CEO of ICSD, Dmitry Rebrov is Russian and has been found guilty by his country’s legal system of falsifying audiograms and ICSD have not followed the IOC and IPC in restricting how Russia can compete due to RUSADAs poor history of doping scandals. Last month’s World Short Course Swimming Championships had no in-competition anti-doping tests in place. When ICSD President Perazzolo was questioned about the lack of anti-doping tests he blamed the Polish organising committee and did not take responsibility for ICSD’s role in event planning oversight.

In recent weeks, CSD Head of Technical Commission, Martin Bogard has made presentations to his colleagues in the commission and to delegates at the Extraordinary Congress last week. We understand from comments being made by congress delegates that some of the sports sites may not be up to international standards which, if the claims are true, would make it difficult to validate any new Deaflympic Records set in the sports affected.

The IOC has continued to with hold its funding to ICSD in the wake of embezzlement scandals involving a former ICSD President and the umbrella organisation did not sanction the 2019 Winter Deaflympics and it remains to be seen what they will do for Caxias do Sul.

WADA Reinstates DIBF

Posted on by
Reply

The World Anti Doping Agency has removed DEBF from the list of non-compliant signatories.

(logo: DIBF)

Two days ago (24 November) the Deaf International Basketball Federation (DIBF) received a letter from the WADA Director General to confirm that following a recommendation from the Compliance Review Committee, the WADA Executive Committee has ‘determined that DIBF should be reinstated with immediate effect and therefore removed from the list of non-compliant signatories.’

WADA continued to say that it was ‘pleased with the progress and looks forward to work with DIBF to protect clean athletes’.

You can read about the WADA Code

DIBF Update on WADA Compliance

Posted on by
Reply

Deaf International Basketball Federation share the latest update on their work to become compliant. with WADA ‘Clean Sport’ code

ICSD Accused of Double Standards with Anti-Doping Regulations

Posted on by
5

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.

Photo by Christof Niklaus

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 Niklaus, GB swimming official at WDSCSC 2021 (photo by Christof Niklaus)

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.’

Photo by Christof Niklaus

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.

Christof and Nathan at WDSCSC 2021
(Photo by Christof Niklaus)

Should ICSD comply with WADA regulations?

Posted on by
Reply

On December 9th 2019, the World Anti-Doping Agency Executive Board will meet in Paris to decide whether or not to ban Russia from the global sporting world for four years. The ban not only covers Russian athletes but also events hosted by Russia and any officials who currently sit on governing bodies of sport.

images

The WADA Intelligence and Investigations department has a 26-page report that accuses RUSADA (Russian Anti-Doping Agency) of removing positive samples from its database as well as deleting and/or altering other files dating back to 2015. The report also alleges that fabricated evidence was planted in the database to discredit Dr Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of Russia’s anti-doping laboratory who now lives in the USA under a witness protection programme.

If the ban goes ahead on 9th December, the recommendations include:

  1. No Russian Government officials or representatives to sit as members of boards or committees on any code-compliant organisations (such as Olympic sports, FIFA etc)

2. Russian government officials or representatives may not participate or attend and major sports events, including Youth Winter games, Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

3. Russia to be prevented from hosting any major international sports events during the four year ban

4. With draw events already planned unless it is legally or impractical to do so

5. Russian flag to be banned from all major events

6. No senior officials (President, Secretary General and CEO) of the Russian Olympic Committee or the Russian Paralympic Committee be allowed to attend any major sporting event; and

7. Russian athletes only allowed to participate if they can prove they are not implicated in any way by the non-compliance findings.

All of the above information from

There are voices within the Deaflympic Movement who also want to see ICSD comply with this ban because they are a WADA-compliant organisation. The ICSD CEO, Dimitry Rebrov is Russian.

Russian officials have been speaking out against the WADA recommendations and it is expected that some within ICSD will also argue that Russian athletes and officials have not been involved in doping activities.

One of the reasons WADA is recommending such a ban is because of the fraudulent behaviour of Russian officials towards its own athletes and officials, fabricating evidence to try and discredit people. This blog demonstrated in April 2015 that the Russian Committee of Deaf Sport is also guilty of such behaviour, when the current ICSD CEO Dimitry Rebrov falsified the Audiogram of one of its own wrestlers Eugene Golovanov to get him banned from European competitions – this case went to court in Moscow, who found Rebrov guilty and later his appeal was overruled by the Court of Appeal. He remains guilty of conspiracy to fraud audiograms, the fundamental basis of classifying Deaflympians is their audiograms.

Dimitry Rebrov

Dimitry Rebrov, found guilty of falsifying Audiograms

If this ban does come into effect on 9th December, it will be three days before the start of the ICSD Winter Deaflympics in Italy where ICSD Congress will be overseen by its Board and Russian CEO. It is unlikely that the Russians will be banned from this Congress or the events themselves because the ban would have come in at very short notice. But what about the next four years?

What will ICSD do next ? What decisions will ICSD members make next month?

Here are some comments from Facebook:

“ICSD really has to stand and be counted for the rest of our Deaf athletes worldwide.” Craig Crowley, ICSD President 2009 – 2013. President UK Deaf Sport.

“Sad for Russian athletes” Greg Ophel, Deaflympian, Volleyball

“It’s all money, money, money….” Graham Banks

“And what about the Chinese?” Mark John Obrien

 

 

Doping in Deaf sport not transparent say critics.

Posted on by
2

According to an article in Parasport News, the International Committee of Sport for the Deaf (ICSD) who govern the Deaflympics have been substandard when it comes to reporting on doping violations by Deaf athletes.

The full article from Parasport can be read here.

ICSD rules say that when doping cheats are found out, the results will be advertised on the ICSD website – according to the Parasport article, this has never been done.

Since 1986, a total of 370 Paralympic, Deaflympic and disability sport cheats have been caught – but only 28 have been Deaf and all except two were discovered during the Summer and Winter Deaflympic Games.

The nationalities of the 28 athletes are 5 unknown, 1 German and 22 Russians. The ICSD has not published the names of these athletes, this breaches its own rules in article 14.4:

“The ICSD shall publish at least annually a general statistical report of its Doping Control; activities, with a copy provided to WADA. The ICSD may also publish reports showing the name of each athlete tested and the date of each testing.”

This makes it difficult for competition organisers in Deaf World Championships and regional championships to know who has been banned – because the names are not published according to article 14.4.

The greater concern is that doping is not carried out during World Championship and regional events – so it is likely that many more doping athletes are going undetected.

It is of no surprise that the IOC and other international sports bodies will not take Deaf sport seriously because this lack of transparency does not make officials feel confident about the reliability of Deaf sport to run its events to the highest standards.

It can be argued that of ICSD had done their job properly, delegates at the ICSD Congress in 2013 may not have elected the Russians to run their organisation if they knew that in 2009 and 2010 a total of 15 out of 16 athletes caught cheating were Russian.

This alarming lack of oversight on Doping Control means that the  ICSD Executive Committee has allowed Russian athletes to compete in recent Athletics events organised under IAAF rules despite a worldwide ban in the sport of Athletics. The ICSD Athlete Representative Dean Barton-Smith has had no reply from the ICSD to his written concerns about this.

The same goes for Audiogram cheating; event after being found guilty by a Russian court of law for falsifying audiograms, the ICSD Chief Executive still remains in post. Two Big ears has reported on this previously.

When will Deaf sport wake up and challenge the ICSD Executive about this ?