GENEVA (AP) — Craig Reedie, the former World Anti-Doping Agency president whose position on the Russian doping scandal a decade ago brought him into conflict with the IOC where he was a vice president, has died. He was 84.
The International Olympic Committee confirmed his death on Monday without stating the cause.
Reedie played key roles in London’s unexpected win in bidding to host the 2012 Olympics and in getting his own sport badminton on to the Olympic program for the 1992 Barcelona Games.
“Craig was my mentor, wise counsel, passionate advisor, and great friend,” said Sebastian Coe, who worked alongside Reedie in bidding for and organizing the London Summer Games.
“He was the distinguished elder statesman with a reservoir of Olympic knowledge and experience which he shared willingly and to great effect,” Coe wrote in a social media post on Monday.
Reedie’s standing in Olympic politics helped to elevate him to lead the global anti-doping watchdog in 2013, when the presidential nomination was effectively the turn of the IOC to decide.
Three years later, the lead-in to the Rio de Janeiro Summer Games was dominated by the scandal of learning the scale of Russia’s state-backed doping program at the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.
The push by Reedie’s WADA to remove the entire Russian team from Rio was fiercely resisted by the IOC and its president Thomas Bach. Both men sat on the IOC’s 15-member executive board that ultimately decided to let governing bodies of Olympic sports decide their entry policy for Russian athletes.
The public pressure put on Reedie by influential Olympic figures continued for months until he and Bach met to clear the air. Since Rio, no Russian team has competed at an Olympics with its own country name, flag and anthem.
Current IOC president Kirsty Coventry said on Monday that Reedie’s contribution “to the Olympic Games, to clean sport and to the development of athletes worldwide will endure for generations to come.”
“He was a steadfast guardian of integrity, guiding the global sporting community through some of its most challenging moments with dignity and resolve,” Coventry added in an IOC statement.
Coe described Reedie, a Scotsman who was knighted in 2006, as the “epitome of a gentleman.”
“He was equal parts opinionated, wise, canny, and, most of all, loyal to those who legitimately wanted to serve sport,” the World Athletics president said. “He certainly did not suffer fools gladly, was authentic, and would speak his mind.”
Reedie was elected as an IOC member in 1994 and became an honorary member in 2021.
The IOC said its flag would fly at half-staff for three days at its headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.
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