Exclusive: WADA drops lawsuit against USADA CEO, attempts to leave China doping scandal behind
An internal letter to the World Anti-Doping Agency Executive Committee shows that two senior officials believe the agency has won over 'public opinion' in relation to the Chinese swimming scandal.
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Senior World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) officials believe the ‘court of public opinion’ has demonstrated that the agency correctly handled 23 doping cases involving Chinese swimmers who all tested positive for the heart medication trimetazidine prior to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, according to internal communications obtained by Honest Sport.
The athlete-led group Global Athlete tells Honest Sport that WADA officials must be ‘living under a rock’ to hold such an opinion given concerns already raised by ‘clean’ athletes over WADA and the Chinese anti-doping agency’s handling of the cases.
In a letter addressed to the anti-doping regulator’s Executive Committee, the WADA President Witold Banka and Director General Olivier Niggli reveal that the agency has dropped its lawsuit against the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart who accused WADA of sweeping the Chinese swimming cases ‘under the carpet’.
“While we remain convinced that the lawsuit would be successful on its merits, we have determined that it is futile to argue with somebody who is unwilling to accept clear evidence, whose only goal is to damage WADA and the global anti-doping system,” reads the letter. “We will now put this behind us and move forward in collaboration with our stakeholders for the good of all athletes around the world.”
Last month, the US government withheld its annual payment of $3.6m to WADA after the agency initially refused to drop its libel case against Travis Tygart. US federal officials also asked WADA to submit to an external audit after losing some confidence in the agency’s ability to tackle doping worldwide following the China scandal. WADA is still yet to do so.
“It is to be noted that, although the U.S. Government representative on the ExCo stipulated withdrawal of the lawsuit as a condition to payment, he never espoused or defended the outrageous cover-up allegations made by Mr. Tygart,” wrote Niggli and Banka.
In January 2021, 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for the heart medication trimetazidine but escaped sanction after the Chinese Anti-Doping Agency (CHINADA) attributed the cases to environmental contamination in their athlete hotel. WADA had the right to appeal CHINADA’s decision, as it does in every case involving athletes governed by the WADA code, but chose not to do so.
Shortly after ARD and the New York Times broke the story last year, the USADA CEO Travis Tygart accused WADA of a ‘cover up’ - claims which became the focus of the now-dropped libel case.
“It’s even more devastating to learn the World Anti-Doping Agency and the Chinese Anti-Doping Agency secretly, until now, swept these positives under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world,” said Tygart.
Indeed, a WADA-appointed prosecutor, Eric Cottier, wrote in his report that CHINADA deviated from recognised anti-doping practices by neither informing the swimmers they had tested positive nor provisionally suspending them.
“In short, the Chinese Anti-Doping Organisation, by refraining from notifying the positive athletes, completely ignored ISRM Article 5.1.2.1, which the expert describes as a fundamental violation of anti-doping rules. This violation gave rise to a whole series of consequences which, in the expert's view, are the results of many flaws in the proceedings conducted by CHINADA,” read the report.
However, Cottier ruled that WADA showed no bias towards China, that its decision not to appeal the cases to the Court of Arbitration for Sport was reasonable and that it acted in line with its own regulations. However, the Director General of the French anti-doping agency (AFLD) has criticised the narrow scope of the report which was set by WADA itself.
Nevertheless an internal letter from WADA’s two most senior officials to its Executive Committee now reveals that the officials still believe that the ‘Cottier Report’ has strengthened the agency’s reputation.
“We were willing to consider its one condition – withdrawal of the lawsuit – on the basis that the lawsuit’s purpose had largely been achieved through the court of public opinion. This is to say that the world (except for Mr. Tygart) has accepted the findings of the Cottier Report and has shown a desire to move on,” reads the letter.
This is however a view that it not shared by the entire anti-doping community.
The former WADA Vice-president Linda Helleland has called on the Norwegian government, to follow the US, and withhold its annual payment to the agency otherwise they risk “siding with WADA and China”.
“We have a global anti-doping organisation that is devoid of integrity and that is not doing its job. They are supposed to fight doping and ensure fair competition among athletes, but now appear most concerned with protecting the interests of the dark forces that want to destroy sports,” said Helleland.
Meanwhile, the head of the German anti-doping agency has called for an independent investigation.
A board member of the athlete-led group Global Athlete, which is directed by a former WADA official, told Honest Sport that WADA must be “living under a rock” and that Travis Tygart has the full backing of American athletes.
“Athletes in the U.S. have full faith in Travis Tygart to stand up for their interests, to fight for an equitable and effective global anti-doping system, and to call out injustices when he sees them. At the same time, athletes have lost all confidence in WADA,” said the board member Noah Hoffman, who is also a USA Olympian. “WADA must be living under a rock if they think they won the case involving 23 Chinese swimmers testing positive for TMZ [trimetazidine] in the court of public opinion. If any athlete outside of China tested positive for TMZ, they would immediately face a provisional suspension, and the positive test would be publicly disclosed.”
WADA maintains that it had no basis to challenge CHINADA’s explanation of environmental contamination given the available scientific evidence and intelligence.
Just months earlier, a Chinese whistle-blower reportedly informed WADA officials that Chinese athletes had, in the past, taken undetectable amounts of trimetazidine – the same drug the 23 swimmers tested positive for. Further in 2014, the 3-time Olympic champion Sun Yang, in the first of two doping cases during his career, also inadvertently tested positive for the same drug.
WADA also chose not to appeal in the case of the top-ranked tennis player Iga Swiatek who tested positive for trimetazidine after claiming to have taken contaminated melatonin pills.
The American tennis player Jessica Pegula is one of many athletes who has lost faith in the global anti-doping system.
“I can give a reason and explain in a million different ways to make it sound right and I feel that what's been happening the last few years. There is just always an explanation of all these extreme or weird circumstances in cases and I just don't understand how you can trust the process,” said Pegula.
The WADA Presidential elections will take place in May and the current President Witold Banka is widely expected to be re-elected for his third term.
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