Hardly any organization is more hesitant when publishing Doper names than the German Nada. This increasingly causes criticism – while there is still a few doping sinners from past years.
The national anti-doping agency invited you to present its 2024 annual balance sheet to the Berlin Federal Press Conference this Tuesday. What is usually the pure routine event with the representation of a lot of numbers to doping controls and finances was obviously more difficult for the Nada bosses this year.
“It has been high in the past two weeks”said Nada chairwoman Lars Mortsiefer, “It was already surprising for us that a topic that we have presented in different committees over the last five or ten, possibly even 15 years, takes another drive.”
Before Mortsiefe received detailed conflict with German data protectionists in the past few days after ARD research, he presented the usual standards: In 2024, the NADA took 16,386 rehearsals in 12,100 doping controls, 5.096 during competitions and 10,408 in so-called training controls. 93 of them showed conspicuous values, which can also be explained by so -called medical exemptions or the like. Ultimately, the NADA has so far sanctioned 20 athletes due to offense after the anti-doping code, twelve procedures are still running-nothing extraordinary compared to the previous years.
Urbular overview undermined
The problem: If exactly measures were imposed, is only known in exceptional cases and not by the NADA. The data protection responsible for NADA had registered concerns about previous practice in spring 2020 due to an athlete’s complaint. This provided to publish the names of sanctioned athletes and even complete anonymous sports court decisions. For this, the authority emphasized, the legal basis was missing.
As a result, the NADA kept the culprit overview under lock and key and only published anonymized numbers. As a result, only randomly and piece of new names of sanctioned athletes come to the public – or like now after ARD research: the volleyball player Ivan Batanov and Emma Cyris, figure skate Thomas Stoll and the athlete Paula Schneiders.
The ARD doping editorial team had reported exclusively about the extent of the effects of NADA’s publication policy previous. The NADA then admitted that 99 cases have no longer been systematically published online on the NADA website since the Head of the NADA database, i.e. since spring 2020 until today. Only in 23 cases of this had the athlete sanctioned to the public, so that the NADA also published or commented on the cases. The names of 76 athletes due to doping offenses are still unknown – as well as whether there are also Olympic champions or world champions. The common Nada practice was blown up on the doping case of the canoe world champion Martin Hiller.
“The situation in Germany is disappointing”
It is clear that hardly any other anti-doping organization fulfills their obligation to publish as cautiously as the German Nada. The World Anti-Doping Agency points out that the world-anti-doping code does not provide punishment for anti-doping organizations if they violate the code of publication of the code because this requires a national legal situation.
Nevertheless, a Wada spokesman for the ARD announced: “The situation in Germany is disappointing, not least in the face of the fact that the vast majority of European Nados complies with the disclosure obligations defined in the code despite the validity of the General Data Protection Regulation.” The NADA belongs to one “Very small group of European Nados (next to the Netherlands and Norway)”who would have decided to publish anti-doping sanctions by name for data protection reasons.
Other publish easy
In fact, even the Austrian Nada counterpart publishes the names of sanctioned athletes on its website, although data protection procedures from Austria to the problem of publishing the names of sanctioned athletes is pending at the European Court of Justice. Experts do not expect a decision before May 2026.
“The legal basis for the publication can be found in the Anti-Doping Federal Act”says Nada-Austria boss Michael Cepic of the ARD doping editorial team, “And there is no judicial decision that says that the publication by us is illegal.”
Even the International Paralympic Committee, which – like the German Nada – has its seat in Bonn, has a list of sanctioned athletes on its website. However, the confidentiality by the NADA is not always final. For example, volleyball player Ivan Batanov, who went through youth teams as the son of a Russian and a Chinese in Germany and played at VC Olympia Berlin, even known in January 2024 on Instagram.
Sudden career ends without a clue
He could not be reached for inspectors at three planned tests. The rules are just as punished as positive tests. Because it is known that there are athletes who dope and, as long as the substances are still detectable, checks. This was shown by the ARD doping editorial team in the documentary “Secret Doping: Dirty Games”.
A case of German volleyball similar to Batanov can be found on the website of the International Volleyball Association. The former VC Olympic foreign attacker Emma Cyris is listed there among the sanctioned professionals. She was considered a great talent in her position and amazed the experts with her sudden end of the career in the summer of 2021. On the sidelines of the training start, her club, the Dresdner SC, announced, according to the online medium “Sportbuzzer”, that it was running until 2022 “dissolved prematurely in mutual agreement” made.
The player was cited that she wanted to focus more on her training. From a sanction overview of the Volleyball World Association FIVB, on the other hand, it shows that Cyris did not have a doping control in May either deliberately or negligently and was therefore blocked for three years until the end of September 2024.
Figure skaters Stoll twice positive
With the same reason, the medium -range runner Paula Schneiders is also suspended, for three years since December 21, 2022. This emerges from the sanction overview of the unity of integrity AIU of the World-Achustachetics Association. At the time, the Mönchengladbacher reported the local “Rheinische Post” about her early end of career at the age of 22. There was only talk of injury and motivation problems.
And the world ice skating association ISU lists in addition to the prominent, temporary Olympic champion Kamila Walijewa among the athletes who were sanctioned for doping, also the Berlin figure skaters Thomas Stoll, in 2017 in Taipeh participant in the Junior World Cup. His four-year lock expires at the end of this year. Stoll was tested twice for the anabolic steroid drostanolon and was closed for four years within a few weeks.
At the appointment in Berlin, NADA CEO Mortsiefer said that he is now watching how finally movement will get into the problem. “We have to look”he told the ARD, “Whether a further interest must now be stated to publish all names accordingly.”