The year 2022 is off to a pretty good start for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The Montreal-based organization announces that it has removed 11 National Anti-Doping Organizations (NADOs) from its compliance “watch list”. They all corrected their irregularities in relation to the World Anti-Doping Code, and this before their respective four-month deadline. Ten of them were granted a period of four months, until January 14, 2022, to make the necessary improvements: the Flemish, French and Brussels Belgian communities, Spain, Greece, Iran, Latvia, the Netherlands, Portugal and Uzbekistan. An eleventh national anti-doping agency, in Montenegro, was also removed from the list after successfully remedying its irregularities before a deadline of February 28, 2022. For the most part, the unenvious situation of these organizations was linked to irregularities in their anti-doping programs and/or the lack of full implementation of the 2021 Code in their legal systems. To date, only four national anti-doping agencies remain non-compliant, in North Korea, Indonesia, Russia and Thailand respectively. But the NADOs of Indonesia and Thailand are engaged in the reintegration process.
