The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has announced that six members of Georgia’s national rugby union and one support personnel have been found to have violated anti-doping regulations. The findings came as a result of a joint investigation between WADA and World Rugby. In addition to the individual violations, the investigation has resulted in a ‘loss of confidence’ for the Georgian Anti-Doping Agency (GADA).
The findings were announced on 13 March, and came after an investigation, code-named ‘Operation Obsidian’, was launched in 2023.
According to the report, there were ‘five instances where sample substitution occurred’. The investigation also discovered that ‘advance notice of testing was being given to players from the Georgia national rugby union team by employees of GADA’.
‘What has been happening in Georgian rugby is outrageous and will send shockwaves through Georgian sport and government, as well as the global game of rugby’, WADA President Witold Bańka said.
‘This is not the end of the story as further investigation is now going on deeper into Georgian sport. WADA has brought Operation Obsidian’s findings to the attention of the government of Georgia to address the issues in the Georgian Anti-Doping Agency’, Bańka said.
‘As the next steps are being considered, clearly, WADA has lost confidence in GADA’s anti-doping programme and wholesale changes must now be made by the relevant authorities’.
In recent years, Georgian sports have become a battleground between the government and its critics.
Athletes featured heavily in the October 2024 election lists of Georgian Dream and its satellites. In December, Mikheil Kavelashvili, a former player for the Russian Spartak-Alania Vladikavkaz and English Manchester City football clubs became the president of Georgia. He has been criticised as a man ‘without a diploma,’ with his detractors often highlighting his lack of higher education.
In April 2025, Davit Kacharava, an MP with the ruling Georgian Dream satellite party People’s Power and a former rugby player, was elected president of the Georgian Rugby Union.
Mikheil Gvadzabia
