Former WADA chief Craig Reedie dead at 84

“With Sir Craig’s passing, we have lost a true gentleman and clean sport champion,” said current WADA president Witold Banka in a statement.

“He was a man of great integrity and, as a sportsman at heart, he believed that sport shows us it is always possible to do better –- a belief he applied to his leadership of WADA.”

Reedie was an international badminton player, representing Great Britain and in 1981 he was elected president of the International Badminton Federation, where he succeeded in having the sport included at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.

He was also the chairman of the British Olympic Association between 1992 and 2005, before becoming the president of WADA, from 2014 to 2019, as well as a vice-president of the International Olympic Committee.

As head of WADA, Reedie was widely criticised by athlete groups and national athlete bodies for the organisation’s 2018 decision to lift a three-year suspension on Russian athletes for “state-sponsored” doping imposed following the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.

By that time, however, he had already played a central role in bringing the 2012 Olympics to London, when Paris were thought to be the favourites to host the event.

London 2012 bid chief Sebastian Coe, now the president of World Athletics, paid tribute to “my mentor, wise counsel, passionate advisor, and great friend” in an X post.

Coe, a two-time Olympic 1500 metres champion, added: “Without Craig and his leadership of the British Olympic Association, we may never have won the right to host London 2012.”