Two months before the opening of the Paris Olympics, the world body tasked with cracking down on doping in sports is in growing crisis as it fends off allegations that it helped hide a positive test result from an elite Chinese swimmer who competed and won. confronting. Medal — at the last Summer Games.
The allegations are particularly troubling to the World Anti-Doping Agency. The World Anti-Doping Agency has long billed itself as the gold standard in the global movement for clean sport. This is because the allegations raise concerns that the agency, and by extension the system as a whole, may be attempting to cheat. You can't trust the Olympics to stay clean.
Athletes are wondering whether they can rely on WADA to fulfill its core mission of ensuring a level playing field in Paris, where some of the same Chinese swimmers are favorites to win more medals. I openly have doubts.
And in recent days, there has been a significant increase in pressure on WADA, particularly from the United States, one of WADA's main funders, and WADA's appointment of an independent prosecutor to investigate the allegations; New questions have arisen about whether the information was provided. It will provide an accurate explanation to the public about the appointment, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The New York Times.
The Biden administration's top drug official, who is also a member of WADA's executive committee, sent a scathing letter to the anti-doping agency on Wednesday, asking how it could appoint a truly independent commission to investigate how positive tests were handled. I explained what needed to be done and requested the following: The board will hold an emergency meeting within the next 10 days.
“We want to emphasize the extreme concern we are hearing directly from American athletes and their representatives regarding this issue,” official Dr. Rahul Gupta said in a letter sent on Biden administration letterhead. “As we have told you, athletes have said they will go into the Olympic and Paralympic Games with serious concerns about whether the playing field is level and competition is fair.”
The same day, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who is in charge of the subcommittee that funds WADA, said, “We need answers before we can support future funding.” (The United States contributes more to her WADA budget than any other country, with more than $3.6 million pledged this year.)
And on Friday, a congressional aide said the bipartisan House committee investigating the Chinese Communist Party had begun investigating the positive test.
Lily King, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and member of the USA Swimming Athlete Advisory Committee, says she no longer believes WADA is playing a role in keeping athletes who violate anti-doping rules out of the Olympics. Ta.
“When I go up to the block, I'm not confident that the people to my right and to my left are clean,” King said in a phone interview Friday. “And that's a real shame, because when you're racing in the Olympics, that's not what I should be focusing on.”
In the face of mounting pressure and growing concern over the credibility of the Olympic Games, the two groups that account for the majority of the International Olympic Committee's income – chief broadcasters and sponsors – have remained silent.
NBC, whose rights fees make up a significant portion of the IOC's total budget, did not respond to questions about whether it was confident it could broadcast an Olympics where viewers could trust that the athletes they were watching were clean.
Are multi-million dollar Olympic sponsors Visa, Airbnb, Coca-Cola and Intel concerned about associating their brands with an Olympics where athletes have expressed concerns about cheating? did not respond to messages seeking comment. German financial services company Allianz also declined to comment.
The Times reported last month that WADA had failed to abide by its own rules after all 23 of China's elite swimmers tested positive for the same banned substance in 2021, months before the last Summer Olympics. Reported. The drug (trimetazidine, also known as TMZ) is a prescription heart drug that is popular among athletes looking for an advantage because it enhances training, speeds recovery, and moves through the body quickly, making it difficult to detect.
Two days after the Times article was published, WADA President Witold Banka and other agency officials held a press conference saying they had no choice but to accept the explanation given by the Chinese Anti-Doping Agency for the positive test. Ta. Chinese authorities claimed that all of the swimmers accidentally ingested the drug because they ate food from a kitchen contaminated with TMZ.
In the days that followed, WADA again released a lengthy document attempting to explain its decision.
But neither move satisfied athletes, sports officials, or anti-doping officials who are perplexed by WADA's apparent reluctance to pursue an independent investigation into positive tests. However, within days of this news becoming public, WADA appointed special prosecutor Eric Cottier to review its handling of the case.
This decision also quickly attracted criticism.
Cottier, the former attorney general of the Swiss canton of Vaud, which has become an international sports center and is home to several sports organizations, including the IOC, has not been named to lead the investigation, according to interviews. Ta. The official was in charge of auditing the agency's intelligence and investigation department at the time the Chinese swimmer tested positive.
The auditor, Jacques Antenen, was Vaud's chief of police when Cottier was Vaud's attorney general. In a May 3 telephone interview, Mr. Antenen said that he contacted WADA chief executive Olivier Nigri days after announcing his positive test and that Mr. Cottier would not be a good choice to lead the investigation. He said he suggested that.
“I didn't recommend him. I said if you need someone, that's a good choice,” Antenen said. He said he did not know if anyone else was being considered for the role.
Governance experts said that regardless of Mr. Cottier's abilities or qualifications, his physical proximity to people close to WADA, the IOC and sporting movements is problematic.
Mr. Cottier and IOC Secretary-General Christophe de Koepper were among those who celebrated Mr. Anttenen's retirement from the police force at the 2022 party. The IOC contributes half of WADA's annual budget of $40 million.
The celebration was featured in the National Police Agency's magazine and first reported by the Associated Press. “Attorney General Eric Cottier came to say hello to his old friend Jacques Antenen,” the magazine said in a caption with a photo of two men.
WADA spokesperson James Fitzgerald said that in fact, the WADA agency first contacted Mr. Antenen and said, “We have the qualifications, independence, and responsiveness necessary to conduct a thorough investigation into WADA's response to this incident.” “Do you know anyone with powers?” he said. ”
“Attempts to smear the integrity of highly regarded professionals just beginning their careers are becoming increasingly absurd and aimed at undermining the process,” Fitzgerald said. said.
WADA's public statements regarding Cottier's appointment also raise new questions. WADA said in a statement to the Times that it discussed his appointment with its board of directors before formally appointing him.
But Dr. Gupta's Office of National Drug Control Policy said in a statement that shortly before officially announcing Cottier's hiring in April, WADA told the board that an investigator had already been selected.
In a letter to WADA, Dr. Gupta said he was “deeply concerned” that the executive committee “has not been adequately briefed on important information throughout this process.”
Former athletes are now calling for more testing around the world in the run-up to the Paris Games, but have acknowledged concerns with global anti-doping regulators are unlikely to ease by the time of the opening ceremony.
American swimmer Ms. King said that when she learned of her undisclosed positive test, it felt like a replay of her experience winning gold in the 100m breaststroke at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Told. Russian swimmer Yulia Efimova failed a drug test earlier that year, but her appeal overturned the result and she was allowed to compete.
Katie Meili, USA Swimming's athlete representative on the board of directors and bronze medalist in the race behind King and Efimova, said the athletes have “a tremendous amount of confidence in WADA.” .
“Yes, a positive test is a concern and that is bad,” she said. “But what concerns me even more is that international regulators are not doing their job.”
amy chan chien Contributed to research.
