WADA publishes membership of its Standing and Permanent ...
Today, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) publishes the 2025 membership of its three Standing Committees, namely, the Education Committee; the Finance and Administration Committee; and the Health, Medical and Research Committee. The new or renewed member terms of these bodies were approved by the Agency’s Executive Committee (ExCo) at its 4 December 2024 meeting. To provide a full picture of WADA’s Committees in 2025, the membership of the five Permanent Special Committees is also included in this publication.
In accordance with WADA’s Governance Regulations concerning Standing Committee composition and rotation, on an annual basis, the Agency is required to announce its call for nominations six months prior to when the decision will be taken by the ExCo. Accordingly, in June 2024, WADA invited candidates to apply for nine vacant seats. After the close of the application period, the candidates were reviewed by the respective Chairs of the Standing Committees, in consultation with WADA’s President and Director General, and then presented to the ExCo for approval. The selection of Standing Committee members is undertaken with consideration across all the Agency’s Committees to ensure fair distribution of membership between Public Authority and Sport Movement representatives and regional diversity, while also considering gender and cultural balance where possible. Each Standing Committee includes at least one representative from the WADA Athlete Council (AC) and another from National Anti-Doping Organizations.
WADA’s AC, a Permanent Special Committee, is in the middle of an election that will determine the eight athletes who will form the Council’s Group 2(i) for 2025-2027. The full AC Group 2 composition will be publicly announced by 20 December and the AC will meet in early 2025 to select their representatives to the WADA Standing Committees, to be formally appointed by the ExCo via circulatory vote.
As concerns WADA’s other 2025 Permanent Special Committees, some changes are incoming to the Compliance Review Committee (CRC) and Independent Ethics Board (IEB) as listed below. The terms of some members of the Nominations Committee and Risk and Audit Committee will conclude before the end of 2025, but their composition remains unchanged as of 1 January 2025.
At its 4 December 2024 meeting, the ExCo approved the following appointments to the CRC:
Nicholas Griffin KC as a new independent member, replacing long-standing member Barbara Leishman.
Andrew Ryan as the new Sport Movement member, replacing long-standing member Tom Dielen.
Regarding the IEB:
At its 5 December 2024 meeting, WADA’s Foundation Board (Board) agreed that Mary Ang’awa, Pascal Borry, and Marc Theisen be automatically approved for additional three-year terms.
Mette Hartlev (Independent Chair) and Regina LaBelle (Sport Movement nominee) have indicated that they will not seek reappointment at the end of their current May 2025 terms. A call for interest to find a new independent member will be launched later today, while the Public Authorities will be asked to submit a new nominee in early 2025. The Board will be asked to approve the two new IEB members via circulatory vote in April 2025 upon the Nominations Committee’s recommendations.
More information on WADA’s Committees can be found under the Standing Committee section and the Permanent Special Committee section of WADA’s website. The information will be updated with the new compositions on the respective Committee pages in early January 2025.
Note:
(i) The Athlete Council is composed of the following three groups of athlete representatives:
Group 1: Five athletes appointed by the International Olympic Committee’s and International Paralympic Committee’s Athlete Commissions (ACs);
Group 2: Eight athletes elected by International Federation ACs; and
Group 3: Seven other athletes, selected by an appointment panel made up by a majority of athletes, to fill skills and diversity gaps.
