LONDON: Veteran British sports administrator Craig Reedie, a former head of the World Anti-Dop­ing Agency (WADA) and a key figure in London’s successful bid to stage the 2012 Olympic Games, has died aged 84 it was announced on Monday.

“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 national athlete bodies for the 2018 decision to lift a three-year suspension on Russian athletes for “state-sponsored” doping imposed following the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2026