WADA and USADA are embroiled in a bitter fight over Chinese case that affects everyone in anti-doping

After more than two months of bitter fighting between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) over media reports of an alleged doping cover-up in China, Anders Solheim, chairman of the Institute of National Anti-Doping Organisations (iNADO), calls on all parties in anti-doping to think about how they can help strengthen the international anti-doping work.    

“I understand why many athletes are asking questions about the case and wondering about the debate. The Chinese case affects everyone in anti-doping,” Solheim says to Play the Game.
The Norwegian has noted the harsh debate between WADA, USADA, and China’s national anti-doping agency CHINADA over the Chinese case, but he says he is in favour of freedom of speech and prefers high ceilings and room for disagreements:

“It’s important that we can discuss without getting personal. But I also want the discussion to take place in a more positive and constructive way with statesmanship and diplomacy. We all need to work together. There is not just one player in the field.”

INADO is an umbrella organisation with 59 national and 9 regional anti-doping organisation members. Both CHINADA and USADA are members of the governing board of iNADO:

“It is not our job to decide whether the Chinese case has been handled in violation of the rules or not. That is the role of WADA, which is the global body responsible for monitoring consistent enforcement of the rules. Harmonising anti-doping practice is essential,” Solheim says.

“We know the Chinese case mainly from the media. But we have had a meeting with WADA to exchange views and get answers to questions, and CHINADA has briefly informed us.”

According to Solheim, many iNADO member organisations get questions from athletes who want to know what happened. Some questions have been answered. Other questions are waiting to be answered in a report commissioned by a WADA-appointed investigator, he notes.

“Different national anti-doping agencies have different opinions on the case. That’s why it’s so important in the short term to find out what happened in China in January 2021. Why did the athletes test positive and how was the food contaminated? It’s in the interest of both anti-doping and athletes to get as many facts about the case as possible. It’s a matter of trust and credibility. We owe this to the athletes.”

CHINADA: “An isolated mass incident of food contamination”  

The fight between WADA, USADA and CHINADA broke out shortly after The New York Times and German broadcaster ARD on 20 April 2024  revealed that 23 Chinese swimmers in January 2021 tested positive for the banned performance enhancing heart medication trimetazidine (TMZ) without being sanctioned for violating the anti-doping rules. Several of the Chinese swimmers who tested positive were allowed to compete at the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021 and some of them won Olympic medals.    

A few days after the exposure, CHINADA published a statement that said the findings of TMZ in 28 urine samples from the 23 Chinese swimmers “were an isolated mass incident caused by athletes’ unknowing consumption of food contaminated with TMZ”.

CHINADA said their conclusions were based on a “thorough and comprehensive investigation with scientific methods”, and that “it was then decided that the athletes involved would be held to have no fault or negligence”.  

WADA did not appeal “for reasons of pragmatism and fairness to the athletes”

On 29 April 2024, WADA published a fact sheet/frequently asked questions on the “contamination case of swimmers from China” in which the agency argued that “there were strong indications that these cases could be a case of group contamination”.

WADA stated that “for largely technical reasons, WADA did not agree entirely with CHINADA’s approach” in the case but “having determined that it was in no position to challenge the contamination scenario, WADA decided not to initiate 23 technical appeals to CAS”.

According to the WADA statement, an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport “would not have been able to obtain a judgement before the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympic Games in July/August 2021” and “for reasons of pragmatism and fairness towards the athletes” WADA decided not to “lodge what would have been a largely technical appeal”.

WADA also announced a compliance audit on CHINADA’s national anti-doping program and appointed Eric Cottier, a retired Swiss prosecutor, to independently review WADA and CHINADA’s handling of the TMZ cases but that did not stop WADA from being criticised by USADA.  

USADA: "WADA is sweeping 23 positive tests under the carpet"

In a response to WADA’s factsheet of 29 April 2024, Travis Tygart, CEO of USADA, accused WADA of “sweeping 23 positive tests under the carpet” and “doubling down on half-truths and self-serving rationalisations for failing to enforce its own rules”.

On 17 May 2024, following a WADA Foundation Board Meeting in which WADA’s president Witold Bañka received support from the board on the Chinese case, Tygart said in a statement that WADA acted with “obfuscation and childish bluster” in a “classic response to attack the messenger, distract from the real issues, and make it personal”.

According to Tygart, Bañka “resorted to new lows” at the WADA Foundation Board meeting “by calling into question the integrity and dedication to clean competition of American professional, college, and Olympic and Paralympic athletes”.

In a statement on WADA’s failure to testify in a US Congress hearing on 25 June 2024 about the Chinese case titled “Examining Anti-Doping Measures in Advance of the 2024 Olympics” in which Tygart and former US Olympic swimmers Michael Phelps and Allison Schmitt testified, Tygart also criticised WADA for a “bullying and deflection strategy”.

In the statement, Tygart accused WADA of a continued “race to the bottom and attack on US athletes and the anti-doping program in the US” even though WADA “have no one to blame but themselves for causing the ongoing damage of the global anti-doping system”.

Nevertheless, in a WADA statement on the US Congress hearing, Bañka continued the war of words and accused USADA of “aggression and hypocrisy” and “politicization of anti-doping” as well as “undermining US athletes’ confidence in the integrity of their rivals overseas”.

According to the WADA president, USADA is dividing athletes “into us and them” and prefers to “criticize and lecture others rather than tending to their own backyard” where US athletes are “not sufficiently tested” in “one of the world’s largest markets for illicit steroid and performance-enhancing drugs”.

And following the WADA Foundation Board meeting, WADA’s Founding President Richard W. Pound, backed Bañka in a statement in which Pound said he was “deeply disappointed and disgusted by the deliberate lies and distortions coming from USADA”. Pound accused USADA of “endless and biased criticism” and said he in USADA’s conduct was missing “a willingness to work for solutions.”     

Doping Authority Netherlands: “CHINADA and WADA did not adhere to the most essential rule”

As an example of the huge anti-doping interest in the Chinese case, the Doping Authority Netherlands’ president Vincent Egbers reacted to the media reports of an alleged doping cover-up in China by commissioning his legal director Steven Teitler to review the legal aspects of the case.

In a white paper that was published on 4 June 2024, Teitler concluded that CHINADA’s handling of the case, and WADA’s subsequent response, did not adhere to the most essential rule in the World Anti-Doping Code: the principle of Strict Liability.

“Figuratively speaking, the Strict Liability rule set out in the World Anti-Doping Code Articles 2.1 and 2.2 is set in stone: an Adverse Analytical Findings (AAF) leads to the determination that an anti-doping rule violation occurred”, Teitler notes in the paper.

“In addition, WADA’s statements about multiple precedents to the CHINADA decision have left the anti-doping community with more questions than answers,” Teitler argues.

“Unequal treatment of athletes is not in line with the World Anti-Doping Code and does not serve the objective of the harmonisation of the rules and standards across the globe. The global anti-doping community needs clarity and answers to uphold the rules, restore trust, and to promote the global anti-doping system.”

ITA: “We have not found evidence of a cover-up”

However, another major player in anti-doping, the International Testing Agency (ITA), has also investigated the Chinese case without finding evidence of a doping cover-up.

In an e-mail to Play the Game, ITA confirms having received confidential and anonymous information in the summer of 2021 about positive results affecting a group of Chinese swimmers following testing activities performed by CHINADA in the first half of 2021.

“In parallel to a full assessment of the information received, the ITA conducted many targeted follow-up testing missions in 2021, 2022, 2023 and up until today and other investigative steps. This is a standard procedure that the ITA puts in place whenever it receives confidential information which may impact the integrity of our partners’ sport competitions,” ITA communications senior manager Marta Nawrocka notes. She adds:

“For the sake of clarity and transparency, it is pointed out that since the CHINADA decision in 2021, the ITA has not come across any reliable evidence that would suggest that a cover-up or a manipulation of the anti-doping process took place.”

Tygart: “US funding conditional on WADA changes”

Nevertheless, asked by Play the Game why USADA has taken such a strong position in this specific case, Tygart says:

“We have always been committed to standing up for what’s right and fair, even when it’s not easy or popular. Based on what has been exposed in the media, it seemed very clear that CHINADA failed to follow the rules from the start by not imposing provisional suspensions after the 23 Chinese athletes tested positive for a prohibited prescription medication."

Additionally, he says, WADA allowed this failure and then failed to conduct its own investigation when Chinese authorities provided “a flimsy contamination excuse”. And even if contamination were the cause of the positive tests, those cases would be considered violations, which must be publicly announced under WADA rules.

“WADA granted special treatment for a certain few, which is a complete betrayal of all the athletes who are playing by the rules around the world. We can’t possibly sit by and let this injustice continue to be swept under the carpet.”

To Solheim’s call for more statesmanship and diplomacy in international anti-doping, Tygart says USADA agrees that “WADA leaders have lost their way in using fear tactics and threats to attempt to intimidate athletes and anti-doping advocates”.

“Of course, all of us in anti-doping should be on the same team but we aren’t sport politicians but will put our athletes’ right to fair sport above cowering to WADA’s bullying behaviour and unequal treatment of athletes.”

To restore athlete and stakeholder trust in WADA, Tygarts says USADA has called on the US Congress to make WADA’s funding from the US conditional on WADA’s release of the full China dossier.

“We also asked to condition funding on a compliance audit of WADA as well as changes that will ensure WADA can no longer conduct secret backroom deals giving preferential treatment to some,” he says pointing to the fact that WADA is not an independent organisation.

“The IOC pays half of WADA’s budget and essentially controls its decisions. As it stands, WADA’s governance structure also allows for its board members to simultaneously serve in an executive capacity for sports organisations.”

Tygart argues that if the IOC made the decision to properly finance efforts to keep performance-enhancing drugs out of sport, and to remove themselves and other sports organisations from critical anti-doping functions, the anti-doping landscape would be exponentially stronger and clean athletes could trust the global system and be much better protected:

“Sport involvement in these critical anti-doping functions is a glaring conflict of interest, and we know from experience that it’s too much to expect any organisation to effectively promote and police itself”.

On 9 July 2024, WADA released a summary report on CHINADA and WADA’s handling of the case from the retired Swiss prosecuter Eric Cottier. He concludes WADA showed no bias towards China and that the decision not to appeal the 23 Chinese swimming cases was ”indisputably reasonable”.

”Now that is has been confirmed by the Independent Prosecuter that there was no impropriety connected to WADA’s handling of the case, the Agency will consider with external legal counsel what measures can be taken against those that have made untrue and potentially defamatory allegations,” WADA president Witold Bañka said in a statement and added:

”These allegations have been extremely damaging to WADA’s reputation and to the confidence and trust that athletes and other stakeholders have in the Agency and the global anti-doping system.”

Meanwhile, the case is under further investigation in the US. In late May, a House Committee on China asked the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate the case under a federal law that allows investigations into suspected doping conspiracies even if they occurred outside the US. The investigation was confirmed by the International Swimming Federation who says its executive director has been ordered to testify as a witness in the investigation.

In a statement on its website, WADA says it is disappointed to learn about the investigation and that WADA stands by its determination not to challenge the contamination scenario.