Two months before the start of the Paris Olympics, the global agency charged with combating doping in sport faces a growing crisis as it fends off allegations it helped conceal positive tests elite Chinese swimmers who competed – and won medals – at the last Summer Games.
These allegations are particularly vexing for the World Anti-Doping Agency, which has long presented itself as the benchmark for the global clean sport movement, because they raise the specter that the agency – and by extension the entire of the system put in place to try to keep the Olympics clean – they cannot be trusted.
The athletes are openly question whether WADA can be counted on to do its primary job of ensuring a level playing field in Paris, where some of the same Chinese swimmers are favorites to win more medals.
And in recent days, pressure on WADA has increased significantly, particularly from the United States, which is one of the agency’s main funders, and as new questions have emerged on the AMA’s appointment of an independent prosecutor to investigate the allegations, and whether the AMA provided an accurate public accounting of the appointment, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The New York Times.
On Wednesday, the Biden administration’s top anti-doping official – who is also a member of WADA’s executive committee – sent a scathing letter to the anti-doping agency explaining how it must appoint a truly independent commission to investigate how positive tests have been processed and requiring its board of directors to hold an emergency meeting within the next 10 days.
“Let me emphasize the extreme concern I have heard directly from American athletes and their representatives on this issue,” wrote the official, Dr. Rahul Gupta, in the letter, sent on paper to en -head of the Biden administration. “As I have shared with you, athletes have expressed that they are heading into the Olympics and Paralympics with serious concerns about a level playing field and fairness of competition.”
The same day, the senator responsible for the subcommittee that funds the AMA, Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, said: “We need answers before we support future funding.” » (US contributes more to WADA budget – pledging more $3.6 million this year – than any nation; the International Olympic Committee matches whatever the United States gives.)
Then on Friday, a congressional aide said a bipartisan House committee investigating the Chinese Communist Party had begun investigating the positive tests.
Lilly King, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and member of USA Swimming’s Athlete Advisory Council, said she no longer believes WADA is doing its job to prevent athletes who violate anti-doping rules from competing in the Games.
“I’m not sure when I go up the blocks whether the people to my right and to my left are clean,” Ms. King said in a telephone interview Friday. “And that’s a real shame, because that’s not something I should be focusing on when I’m racing in the Olympics.”
Mounting pressure and growing concerns about the credibility of Olympic competitions have been met with silence from the two groups that account for a significant portion of the International Olympic Committee’s revenue: its chief broadcaster and its sponsors.
NBC, whose broadcast rights payments represent a significant portion of the IOC’s total budget, did not respond to a question about whether it was sure to broadcast an Olympics in which viewers could be sure that the athletes they ‘they looked would be clean.
The multi-million dollar Olympic sponsors – Visa, Airbnb, Coca-Cola and Intel – did not respond to messages seeking comment on their concern about linking their brands to a Games in which athletes have expressed concerns about cheating. Allianz, a German financial services company, also declined to comment.
The Times reported last month that WADA didn’t follow his own rules after 23 elite Chinese swimmers all tested positive for the same drug banned in 2021, months before the last Summer Olympics. The drug – trimetazidine, known as TMZ – is a prescription heart medication, but it is popular among athletes looking for an edge because it helps them train harder, recover more quickly and move quickly through the body, making it harder to detect.
Two days after the Times article was published, WADA President Witold Banka and other senior agency officials were arrested. a press conference during which they stated that they had no choice but to accept the explanation provided by the Chinese anti-doping agency for the positive tests. The Chinese agency claimed that all the swimmers inadvertently ingested the drug because they ate food from a TMZ-contaminated kitchen.
In the days that followed, WADA published a long document who again tried to explain his decision.
But none of these measures have satisfied athletes, sports officials and anti-doping officials perplexed by WADA’s apparent reluctance to continue its own investigation into the positive tests. However, days after the news was made public, WADA appointed a special prosecutor, Eric Cottier, to review its handling of the matter.
This decision also quickly attracted criticism.
Mr. Cottier is a former attorney general of Vaud, a Swiss region that has become the center of international sport and is home to several sports organizations, including the IOC. But interviews showed that Mr. Cottier was appointed to lead the investigation by the WADA official who was responsible for auditing the agency’s intelligence and investigations department at the time the Chinese swimmers were tested positive.
The auditor, Jacques Antenen, was chief of the Vaud police under Mr. Cottier when he was attorney general of Vaud. In a telephone interview on May 3, Mr. Antenen said he had contacted Olivier Niggli, WADA’s top administrator, in the days following the disclosure of the positive tests, to suggest that Mr. Cottier could be a good choice to lead the investigation.
“I didn’t recommend it; I just said if you need someone, this is a good choice,” Mr. Antenen said. He said he didn’t know if others had been considered for the role.
Whatever Mr. Cottier’s abilities and qualifications, his physical proximity to figures close to WADA, the IOC and the sports movement poses problems, governance experts said.
Mr Cottier and Christoph de Kepper, the IOC’s director general, were among those who celebrated Mr Antenen’s retirement from the police force at a party in 2022. The IOC contributes half of the 40 million annual budget of dollars from the AMA.
The celebration, which was featured in the police department’s internal magazine, was first reported by the Associated Press. A legend with a photo of two of the men in the magazine we can read: “The Attorney General Eric Cottier came to greet his old friend Jacques Antenen. »
A WADA spokesman, James Fitzgerald, said his agency had in fact contacted Mr. Antenen first to ask “if he knew of anyone with the qualifications, independence and availability to proceed.” for a thorough review of WADA’s handling of this matter. »
“These attempts to undermine the integrity of a highly regarded professional as he begins his job are becoming increasingly ridiculous and aimed at undermining the process,” Mr Fitzgerald said.
There are also new questions about WADA’s public statements related to Mr. Cottier’s appointment. In a statement to The Times, the AMA said it had discussed Mr Cottier’s appointment with its board of directors before formally appointing him to the role.
But Dr. Gupta’s Office of National Drug Control Policy said in a statement that shortly before Mr. Cottier’s hiring was officially announced in April, the AMA told its board of directors that an investigator had already been chosen.
Dr Gupta said in his letter to WADA that he was “deeply concerned” that the executive committee “has not been adequately briefed on critical information throughout this process”.
Current and former athletes are now calling for more testing around the world ahead of the Paris Games, but they have acknowledged that their concerns about the global anti-doping regulator are unlikely to be allayed in time for the opening ceremony.
Ms. King, the American swimmer, said that when she learned of the undisclosed positive tests, she felt like it was a repeat of his experience of the Rio 2016 Olympic Gameswhen she won a gold medal in the 100-meter breaststroke against a Russian swimmer, Yulia Efimova, who had failed a doping test earlier that year but was allowed to compete after the result was overturned on appeal .
Katie Meili, the athlete representative on the USA Swimming board and the bronze medalist in that race behind Ms. King and Ms. Efimova, said the athletes had “put a lot of trust in WADA.”
“Yes, the positive tests are concerning, and that’s a bad thing,” she said. “But what concerns me even more is that the international regulator is not doing its job.”
Amy Chang Chien contributed to the research.
