The outgoing president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), Craig Reedie, has said that he is particularly pleased with how the oversight body dealt with the Russian doping crisis during his tenure.
"WADA has shown it has the will, the expertise and the legal tools to stand up effectively to this unprecedented level of cheating and corruption," he wrote in an end-of-term message released on December 30.
Reedie, a native of Scotland, is a former chairman of the British Olympic Association and has been involved with WADA since its foundation in 1999. He was elected to head the world anti-doping watchdog in 2013 and is completing his second term as president.
As president he helped shape WADA's response to a Russian doping scandal that erupted in 2014 and resulted in Team Russia's ban from international competition, including the 2016 Olympics and 2018 Winter Olympics.
WADA is currently preparing to defend its recent decision to ban Russia from international competition for a further four years. Russian sports authorities have appealed to the independent Court of Arbitration For Sport.
"We have faced egregious and, at times, unimaginable threats to clean sport," Reedie said of WADA's work since 2014. "In dealing with those threats, however, we have done more than simply weather the storm."
Reedie will be replaced at the start of the new year by former Polish Sports Minister Witold Banka.
