Swimming icons like Michael Phelps and Allison Schmitt took the stand on Tuesday and called out the World Anti-Doping Agency for its handling of 23 positive tests from Chinese rivals prior to the Tokyo 2002 Olympics. The global watchdog lashed back on Wednesday, as global tension keeps mounting.
In a seemingly never-ending saga that keeps stockpiling inflammatory statements less than a month before the Paris 2024 Games are scheduled to start, WADA addressed the United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce after it held a hearing titled ‘Examining Anti-Doping Measures in Advance of the 2024 Olympics’. Despite the headline, the international agency pointed out that “relevant organizations with responsibility for the anti-doping program during the Olympic Games were not invited. Instead, its focus was on a no-fault contamination case from 2021 involving 23 swimmers from the People’s Republic of China.”
The original scandal broke out two-and-a-half months ago but dates back to 2020 and even further, as said Chinese athletes tested positive for the heart drug trimetazidine yet were still allowed to compete in the following Olympics. The New York Times and German broadcaster ARD reported the news back in April, quoting the United States Anti-Doping Agency’s president, Travis Tygart, saying WADA’s handling of the case could be considered “a potential cover-up”. The back-and-forth between the global watchdog, China and those who criticise its alleged mishandling of the doping case has been harsh since, especially so regarding US-based news outlets, federations, agencies and athletes, and less than ideal just 28 days before the scheduled inauguration ceremony of Paris 2024.
“The hearing sought to further politicize a relatively straightforward case of mass contamination that has been turned into a scandal by a small number of individuals, mainly in the United States. It was another example of the World Anti-Doping Agency being dragged into a much broader struggle between two superpowers. As an independent and largely technical organization, WADA has no mandate to be part of those political debates,” WADA said in a statement. “For this reason, and because we did not want to risk prejudicing the ongoing independent review of WADA’s handling of the case in question, the decision was taken not to send a representative to Washington D.C. this week.”
WADA already decided to lash out at one of the most storied media outlets since the beginning of print journalism after the Times later revealed that the agency was a repeat offender in supposedly covering up the failed drug tests by the athletes that eventually represented China, both in Tokyo 2021 and Rio 2016, and that some even tested positive for the steroid clenbuterol years earlier.
China went a step further last week, as it named its Olympic Games roster and had no problem pushing the envelope by selecting a starting football team’s worth of athletes on the high-profile suspect list, which included butterfly specialist Zhang Yufei, who won two golds in the Tokyo 2021 Games, multiple world champion and 200m breaststroke record-holder Qin Haiyang and Wang Sun, another gold medallist.
READ ALSO: Douglas Luiz completes medical for Juventus
“It is clear to me that any attempts of reform at WADA have fallen short, and there are still deeply rooted systemic problems that prove detrimental to the integrity of international sports and athletes’ right to fair competition, time and time again,” Phelps said on Tuesday’s congressional hearing. “I urge Congress to use its considerable leverage with WADA to make the organization independent and effective. It can’t reasonably be a coincidence that WADA has yet again succumbed to the pressures of international sport to do the expedient at the expense of the athlete. As athletes, our faith can no longer be blindly placed in the World Anti-Doping Agency, an organization that continuously proves that it is either incapable or unwilling to enforce its policies consistently around the world.”
After the most recent report by The Times, stating that three of the swimmers who had failed drug tests showing traces of trimetazidine had also been involved in previous positive tests results for the steroid clenbuterol, Chinese authorities fired back with a statement sent to AFP, claiming that its journalists had “misinterpreted the positive findings for clenbuterol caused by meat contamination as intentional doping by the athletes.”
The Chinese Anti-Doping Agency alleged that the trio of swimmers, which included two 2021 Olympic gold medallists and a current world record holder, had ingested the substance inadvertently through contaminated meat. The theory has been harshly disputed by many in the sporting world, and most vehemently by USADA, as well as American officials and athlete-led pressure groups.
“WADA’s job as the global regulator for clean sport is to strive to ensure that athletes of the world enjoy the same protections, rights and responsibilities whether they are from Boston or Beijing”, WADA’s statement continued. “When we review cases, we must always think about what is fair to those athletes, whatever their sport and whatever their nationality. Conversely, the hearing in Washington D.C. was filled with the sort of emotional and political rhetoric that makes headlines but in fact does nothing constructive to strengthen the global anti-doping system. The talk, led by Travis Tygart of the US Anti-Doping Agency, was all about how other countries and WADA were not playing by the rules. Given what we know about the anti-doping system within the U.S., one can’t help but think about the words of the American politician, Adlai E. Stevenson: “A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation.”
WADA argued that 90% of athletes in the US do not enjoy the protections provided by the World Anti-Doping Code because the main professional leagues and college associations refuse to be brought in under the system overseen USADA. “Even the remaining 10% of athletes in the US are not receiving the sort of support they deserve, a reality illustrated by the fact that 31% of American athletes under the Code were not sufficiently tested in the 12 month-period prior to the Tokyo Games,” the international agency alleged, detailing that it had collected 7,773 samples from 3,011 athletes in 2023. “It is quite a disappointing result. One wonders how USADA uses its annual budget of more than USD 31 million, apart from hiring lobbyists and spending its valuable time attacking WADA and weakening the global anti-doping system. The points above have been made directly to USADA but there seems to be little appetite to accept them. They seem unwilling or unable to see that improvements are needed, p
referring to criticize and lecture others rather than tending to their own backyard,” the statement added.
The policing body underlined that if the US chose not to honour its commitments to the Americas region and pay its agreed share of the annual contribution to WADA’s budget, a possibility that was floated during the congressional hearing, “significant ramifications” would ensue, notably the immediate loss of all positions the country currently holds within WADA’s governance structure, Executive Committee included.