(Paris) The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which has been under investigation for three months, has “not favoured” China in the case of the 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive in 2021 but were not sanctioned, claims a provisional report by an independent prosecutor it had commissioned and which it is publishing on Tuesday, two weeks before the opening of the Paris Olympics.
In turmoil after the revelations in April by the German channel ARD and the New York TimesWADA has been repeating from the beginning that it did not commit any fault in not sanctioning these swimmers who tested positive for trimetazidine before the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Eleven of them have just been selected for the Paris Olympics, including Zhang Yufei nicknamed “the butterfly queen” who won two gold medals in Tokyo.
The report commissioned by WADA to try to put out the fire also concludes that the decision “not to appeal” the decision of the Chinese Anti-Doping Agency (Chinada) to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) was “reasonable”.
This view is not shared by the American Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). “From the beginning, our goal has been to uncover the truth and facts of this situation on behalf of clean athletes,” it wrote in a statement.
“Until WADA’s leadership shares this goal and stops spewing vitriol at any dissenting voice, there will be no trust in the global anti-doping system,” USADA said.
FBI Investigation
“Nothing in the file, which is complete, suggests that WADA showed favouritism or complacency, or in any way favoured the 23 swimmers who tested positive for trimetazidine between 1er and on January 3, 2021, when it reviewed Chinada’s decision to dismiss the proceedings against them,” the report states.
This report, which is provisional and which all parties wanted to see delivered before the Paris Olympics, therefore exonerates WADA in this affair while the American anti-doping authority USADA has accused it from the beginning of having covered it up. The United States has also opened a federal investigation into this matter. The report was examined and approved on Tuesday by the WADA executive board.
Since the press revelations, WADA has insisted that it acted correctly in accepting the Chinese authorities’ argument of “environmental food contamination” in a hotel. WADA President Witold Banka and US anti-doping chief Travis Tygart have been at each other’s throats, rekindling a still-simmering conflict between the organization and the United States.
Instrumentalization
“The report shows that the rules were followed,” Witold Banka told AFP on Tuesday. He believes that this case is being used “as a tool in a geopolitical war.” “If this case had happened in a country other than China, it would not have attracted attention,” he added. He even considered it “dangerous for the future” of anti-doping for a country to start “investigating in other countries,” in reference to the investigation launched by the United States.
While Chinada has pledged to “actively cooperate” with the report, it recently said it would “never” disclose, as the United States reportedly wants, the details of its investigation into the 23 swimmers. Several of the swimmers won medals at the Tokyo Olympics.
According to an internal letter from the AMA sent to its leading members, of which AFP obtained a copy this week, the AMA asked them to report to the AMA legal department if they were “travelling” or “transiting” through the USA, with the contacts of an American law firm in case of a problem.
Asked on Tuesday, a French Olympic source did not expect much from this report: “I fear that this report paraphrases the arguments already put forward by the WADA” since the press revelations in April.
In an exclusive interview with AFP, the president of the International Olympic Committee Thomas Bach explained shortly afterwards that he had “complete confidence in the World Anti-Doping Agency”. The IOC partly finances the world anti-doping watchdog.