Reuters removes doping stories after giving Wada employee Masters pass

Wada’s media head attended event with reporter’s permit.

Reuters has taken down two articles ‘to avoid the appearance of bias’ towards Wada after helping James Fitzgerald attend the Masters. Pic: PA/Alamy

Revelations about undercover runners being recruited to expose an athletics doping conspiracy took a fresh twist on Thursday, when the Reuters news agency withdrew its own articles on the issue after admitting that one of its journalists had arranged for a senior World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) official to attend the Masters golf tournament at Augusta as an accredited journalist.

An investigation for the Observer in July revealed how the United States Anti-Doping Agency (Usada) recruited a Kenyan runner to work as an undercover agent for a number of years, informing on his training group and resulting in US federal agents seizing large quantities of performance-enhancing drugs. During the period in question scores of Kenyan athletes were sanctioned for doping offences.