Last week, and at the last minute, as Front Office Sports reports, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) laid a condition on Utah’s hosting of the 2034 Winter Olympics: it was to recognize the “supreme authority” of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in matters of doping.
In response, the US House of Representatives’ Select Committee on the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) has introduced a lightly modified version of the Restoring Confidence to the World Anti-Doping Agency Act, first proposed two years ago.
In sum, the act seeks “fair representation” for the US, for its athletes and for the athletes of democratic countries, as well as the elimination of conflicts within WADA and on its various boards.
If the act passes, the Office of National Drug Control Policy – along with the US Anti-Doping Agency, the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee and the Team USA Athletes’ Commission – will, within 90 days, examine the WADA’s governance. If it deems that WADA’s reforms are insufficient, the US may, under the terms of the act, withhold as much as the entirety of its dues.
“As the largest financial contributor to the World Anti-Doping Agency, the U.S. deserves to have complete confidence in WADA’s ability to regulate unlawful doping so that every athlete gets a fair shot no matter their sport or country,” says Marsha Blackburn, Senator from Tennessee, who introduced the original bill.
That largest contribution amounted to $3.42 million – out of a total $49.6 million – in 2023. Only seven other countries broke $1 million: Canada, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, the UK and Russia. As the House committee’s name suggests, China – contribution: $713,794 – is at the center of the imbroglio.
Some 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for trimetazidine (TMZ) in 2021. By WADA’s account, the China Anti-Doping Agency (CHINADA) accepted the swimmers, because they had been exposed inadvertently through contamination. WADA requested the full case file, “collected additional, unpublished scientific information on TMZ and consulted with independent scientific experts to test the contamination theory and also whether low doses of TMZ could have benefited the athletes during a swimming competition event.” Lockdowns prevented WADA from investigating in China itself, but WADA found that “it was not in a position to disprove the possibility that contamination was the source of TMZ” and decided that the “athletes would be held to have no fault or negligence.”
Since then, the International Testing Agency has suggested a misreporting of the TMZ samples, but the WADA Intelligence and Investigations Department has found “no evidence of wrongdoing.”
Last month, the American swimmers Michael Phelps and Allison Schmitt testified on the subject before Congress.
Phelps first so testified seven years ago.
