Tokyo 2020, Sport Politics and Athlete Voice with Caradh O’Donovan

The Tokyo Games start in just a few days after being delayed for one year. Hosts Noah and Bree welcome Irish karate athlete and World Champion kickboxer Caradh O’Donovan to address different stories surrounding this year’s controversial Olympic and Paralympic Games and why systems surrounding athlete representation must change.

In this episode, we talk about…

Caradh’s personal sport journey and her decision to not compete in the Tokyo Olympics
How Caradh got involved in the Global Athlete Start-Up Group
What Caradh personally hopes changes to improve the careers of individual athletes
Why Caradh believes the Court of Arbitration of Sport is not the remedy to help athletes
Issues with WADA’s testing system and why it needs to change
Noah’s upcoming witness testimony for the Helsinki Commission and the Rodchenkov Act
Why law enforcement and legislation is needed to stop institutional doping
The impact of Rule 50 and whether athletes will protest during the Tokyo games

Memorable Quotes:

“The promise I made to myself was when I switched sportsI was going to try and stand up for any wrongdoing because it’s rampant in my sport...because there’s a lack of athlete voice.”
“I think a good place to start is to have proper, adequate, independent athlete representation and I do hope that will make a better place for athletes and better change for everybody.”
“There’s a number of human rights we’ve all been afforded and I absolutely believe in them, and that is freedom of expression, and that should be a given there should be no sport or organization on this planet that can just decide they’re going to change the rules because they’re that powerful.”

Guest Bio:

Caradh O’Donovan is a Global Athlete StartUp group member, Irish karate athlete, and a former world kickboxing champion. She is also an ambassador for the sports diversity charity Equity Sport and a weekly presenter of iScore on iRadio.

Links to resources:

Follow Caradh O’Donovan on Twitter @CaradhODonovan

WADA: World Anti-Doping Agency

Court of Arbitration for Sport

Rodchenkov Act of 2019

Watch Noah's testimony for the Helsinki Commission on 21/7/2021
 

Follow Global Athlete on Twitter @GlobalAthleteHQ. Get in touch at [email protected] and join the movement at globalathlete.org.