Tejal Somvanshi
Amid the Olympic Games, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has issued a statement confirming that the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) allowed athletes with positive doping tests to compete for years without sanctioning them. Additionally, WADA refuted USADA’s claims that this was done with WADA’s approval in an attempt to have these athletes exposed to other doping cases.
According to the statement: “This USADA scheme threatened the integrity of sporting competition, which the Code seeks to protect.” WADA asserts that “Within the Code there is a provision whereby an athlete who provides substantial assistance can subsequently apply to have a proportion of their period of ineligibility suspended. However, there is a clear process for that, which does not involve allowing those who have cheated to continue to compete while they may or may not gather incriminating evidence against others and while they could retain a performance-enhancement effect from the substances they took. ” Furthermore, “When WADA eventually found out about this non-compliant practice in 2021, many years after it had started, it immediately instructed USADA to desist” it ordered USADA to cease the practice.
“WADA is now aware of at least three cases where athletes who had committed serious anti-doping rule violations were allowed to continue to compete for years while they acted as undercover agents for USADA, without it notifying WADA and without there being any provision allowing such a practice under the Code or USADA’s own rules.” – as per their statement.
“In one of the cases, an elite athlete, who competed in Olympic qualifiers and international events in the United States, admitted to taking steroids and EPO but was allowed to continue competing,all the way up to retirement.” they said.
The case was never made public, the results were not disqualified, and the athlete could keep the prize money. “Being put in this impossible position, WADA had no choice but to agree (after verifying with its Intelligence and Investigations Department that the security threat was credible). The athlete’s doping was therefore never made public.”
In another case involving a high-level athlete, USADA never notified WADA of its decision to lift a provisional suspension, despite being obligated to do so under the Code. WADA “would never have allowed this.”
WADA also admitted to accepting USADA’s requests to protect the individuals involved, justifying their failure to adhere to their own anti-doping rules. “Being put in this impossible position, WADA had no choice but to agree (after verifying with its Intelligence and Investigations Department that the security threat was credible). The athlete’s doping was therefore never made public.,” they stated. The entity also recounted another situation. “In another case of a high-level athlete, USADA never notified WADA of its decision to lift an athlete’s provisional suspension, which is an appealable decision, despite being required to do so under the Code. Had WADA been notified, it would never have allowed this,” they assert.
Finally, they directly criticise the inconsistency of the United States. ” It is ironic and hypocritical that USADA cries foul when it suspects other Anti-Doping Organisations are not following the rules to the letter while it did not announce doping cases for years and allowed cheats to carry on competing, on the off chance they might help them catch other possible violators. ,” they remarked. The confirmation of the U.S. cases follows a similar situation involving China, highlighting the geopolitical conflict between the two nations.
On July 30, during the ongoing Paris 2024 games, WADA also accepted the possible doping of four Chinese athletes who tested positive for methandienone, an anabolic steroid classified as a ‘non-specified’ prohibited substance. According to the Code, this should result in a very severe sanction.
However, they were allowed to compete, even though they had been provisionally suspended for over a year. This was because the Chinese agency (CHINADA) “concluded in their investigation that the four cases were likely related to meat contamination,” they noted. At the end of 2023, the cases were closed. To justify them, other doped athletes were allowed to continue competing. WADA claims to be caught in the middle of a geopolitical conflict between the two superpowers, which also currently lead the Olympic medal tally: “The politicization of anti-doping continues with this latest attempt by the media in the United States to imply wrongdoing on the part of WADA and the broader anti-doping community. As we have seen over recent months, WADA has been unfairly caught in the middle of geopolitical tensions between superpowers but has no mandate to participate in that.”
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“To this day, 90% of athletes in the U.S. do not enjoy the protections provided by the World Anti-Doping Code (Code). That is because the main professional leagues and college associations refuse to be brought in under the system overseen there by the USADA,”- as per statement by Witold Baka, President of the World Anti-Doping Agency.
WADA wonders whether USADA’s Board of Directors, which governs USADA, or the United States Congress, which funds it, knew of this non-compliant practice that not only undermined the integrity of sports competition but also put the safety of cooperating athletes at risk.
