Witold Banka, president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, left, and director general Olivier Niggli attend a press conference at the 2024 Summer Olympics, on July 25, in Paris.The Associated Press
The World Anti-Doping Agency did its best Thursday to project confidence that the Paris Olympics will be properly policed, despite concerns from several countries that the organization mishandled an investigation into alleged doping by Chinese swimmers.
WADA, the agency responsible for enforcing anti-doping rules at international competitions such as the Olympics, has been under fire since reports emerged in April that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive for a banned substance before the Tokyo Summer Games in 2021. The swimmers were still permitted to compete as an investigation into the matter was conducted.
Several countries, including Canada, the United States, Australia and Britain have questioned why the positive tests were kept quiet, and why the athletes weren’t provisionally suspended pending the results of the investigation, in accordance with how previous cases of suspected doping were handled.
Some of the Chinese swimmers involved in the investigation went on to win medals in Tokyo, and 11 are competing in Paris.
WADA accepted the results of a Chinese investigation that concluded the swimmers were accidentally exposed to trimetazidine, a banned heart medication known as TMZ, when they stayed at a hotel and were served food from a contaminated kitchen.
However, swimming officials and athletes from around the world have criticized that explanation as highly unlikely, wondering how a banned heart medication could end up in restaurant food. Several have questioned why the positive tests were never made public at the time, which is in violation of WADA’s own rules, and only became known three years later after a whistleblower raised alarms and media reports emerged.
WADA’s top officials bristled at questions about the controversy Thursday in Paris. But the organization’s president, Witold Banka, stopped short of saying he could assure the Paris Olympics would be clean.
“Our role is not to give the stamp of credibility to every single athlete. It’s obvious that you will never eliminate doping from the sporting landscape. You will always find someone who wants to cheat,” Banka said.
“So it’s not that now we want to assure you that every single athlete is clean. We don’t know actually. It’s not our role to do it. Our role is to oversee the system, to make sure the system is robust, to make sure that we are using all the existing tools to test athletes properly and not to tell you that the Games are going to be totally clean and you will not have even one single positive test.”
WADA said Chinese swimmers, along with those of every other country competing, have been tested in advance of Paris and that oversight during the Games is robust.
Several high-profile swimmers have raised concerns in light of the controversy.
Seven-time gold medalist for the United States, Katie Ledecky, said in Paris she hoped the testing that has been done is sufficient.
“I hope everyone here is going to be competing clean this week,” Ledecky said. “But what really matters also is, were they training clean? Hopefully, that’s been the case. Hopefully, there’s been even testing around the world.”
Australian Zac Stubblety-Cook, who won gold in the 200-metre breaststroke in Tokyo, said the situation shows the system needs fixing.
“I absolutely believe in clean sport and I hope that this is a clean Games. It is obviously disappointing to hear that news and hear about the pre-Tokyo 23 athletes testing positive,” Stubblety-Cook said.
“For me, racing someone that was one of those athletes, or finding out he was one of those athletes, was disappointing. I think it’s less about what country they came from and more about the system and how the system, ultimately, it feels like it’s failed. And that’s the truth.”
John Atkinson, high-performance director for Swimming Canada, has questioned whether the international procedures for investigating doping need to be changed in light of the controversy. Canada has questioned why the Chinese swimmers were allowed to swim in Tokyo.
Countries such as Canada have also been vocal about how WADA reached its conclusions.
“Nothing that I say now will impact anything that happens in Paris. What was done in the lead-up to Tokyo is done. And what’s been done in the lead-up to Paris has been done,” Atkinson said. “But I think that post-Paris, you have to look at, is the process right? It’s no good saying we followed the process if the process is flawed.
“We have great athletes in Canada that deserve a level playing field, and there are other athletes all around the world that deserve the level playing field as well.”
The swimming controversy has put WADA in direct confrontation with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which has been highly critical of the international agency.
The United States introduced legislation under which criminal charges could be laid in cases where doping rule violations have occurred. The legislation includes any competitions internationally that involve Americans, or receive U.S. funding.
That has rankled WADA, which has accused the United States of taking a unilateral approach.
This week the International Olympic Committee awarded the 2034 Winter Games to Salt Lake City, but inserted a clause into the agreement that it could cancel the arrangement if USADA doesn’t respect “the supreme authority of WADA.”
If not resolved, the dispute could affect the ability of the United States to hold the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles as well.
USADA chief executive officer Travis Tygart said this week that WADA committed egregious errors in its oversight of the Chinese doping allegations. He said it was laughable that banned heart medication could magically appear in a kitchen that was feeding 23 swimmers.
“It is disappointing to see WADA stoop to threats and scare tactics when confronted with a blatant violation of the rules governing anti-doping,” Tygart said.
With a report from The Associated Press