US has a doping problem – WADA

The US should make sure its own sporting organizations follow international doping codes before accusing other countries of illegally enhancing their athletes, World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) President Witold Banka has said.

Speaking at a meeting of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Paris on Wednesday, Banka defended his agency’s decision to clear 23 Chinese swimmers to compete in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 months after testing positive for trace elements of performance-enhancing drugs.

With 11 of these swimmers set to compete at the Paris games this month, the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) has accused WADA of sweeping the scandal “under the carpet,” while the US Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into the agency’s handling of the case.

USADA’s accusations are “politically motivated” and grounded in an anti-China bias, Witold told the IOC.

“If the US authorities assert jurisdiction over cases that have nothing to do with them then it risks putting the United States outside the global anti-doping system,” he added, pointing out that the US has already attempted to give itself this jurisdiction with the passage of the Rodchenkov Act in 2020. This legislation allows the US to prosecute citizens of other countries suspected of doping, provided that they compete alongside Americans or in sporting events with financial ties to the US.

“USADA seeks to put itself above the rest of the world, perhaps even to replace WADA,” Banka declared, adding that “this cannot be allowed.”

“The uncomfortable truth for USADA is that it is failing to address a significant problem, which is that 90% of American athletes compete outside the protection of the [WADA] code,” Banka continued. 

Professional and collegiate sports organizations in the US set their own doping standards, with athletes’ unions allowed to negotiate testing protocols and penalties for drug use. This has resulted in vastly different doping rules between organizations, with the National Football League (NFL) handing out six-game suspensions for anabolic steroid use, and Major League Baseball (MLB) suspending first-time rulebreakers for 25 games.

USADA does not generally test athletes in professional or collegiate leagues, but tests amateur US athletes hoping to compete in the Olympic Games. According to Banka, three quarters of these athletes begin their careers in the collegiate system, meaning that “the majority of elite US athletes initially come from a system that operates outside of the globally recognized clean sports standard. Nothing is being done by USADA to address this serious issue.”

Banka did not outright accuse US athletes of doping. However, he claimed that law enforcement agencies around the world have told WADA that “the US is a huge market for the sale and distribution of performance-enhancing drugs.” 

“If the US continues to threaten” the harmonization of anti-doping rules, “it will isolate itself from the global sporting community and carry significant consequences for American sport,” Banka warned. Former WADA chief Dick Pound has already cautioned that the Rodchenkov Act could be found incompatible with the WADA code, a development that could see Los Angeles lose the right to host the 2028 Summer Olympics.