After a scandal involving Chinese swimmers at the 2021 summer Olympics, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is inching towards constituting a new system in which an independent organization would conduct at least part of the dope tests, rather than relying on countries to clean up their own mess, according to the New York Times.
NYT called it a major change to testing rules before major events like the Olympics. ‘WADA has commissioned a working group to study the feasibility of such a change. The discussions are occurring too late to affect the Winter Olympics that begin this week in Italy, but they could come into play before Los Angeles hosts the Summer Olympics in 2028,’ it wrote.
The American publication noted that Chinese swimmers won their Olympic races, stepped onto the podiums and posed for photos with their medals in 2021. ‘Years later, the world learned that they had been cleared to compete despite failing doping tests. The revelation, first published by The New York Times in 2024, created a crisis for the World Anti-Doping Agency, the group responsible for ensuring fair competition in elite sport. Chinese officials who had conducted the doping tests did not penalize the swimmers, and the agency knew about the tests but chose not to intervene,’ NYT wrote.
WADA had denied any wrongdoing in the 2021 episode, or that the Chinese swimmers should have been barred from competing in the Tokyo Games after they tested positive for the drug trimetazidine, a banned heart medication which the Chinese antidoping regulator claimed came from “food contamination”.
WADA copped criticism for how the tests were handled, predictably from Americans, but swimming’s global governing body recommended that WADA stop permitting countries to test their own athletes – the genesis of this proposed change.
WADA top boss Olivier Niggli had been quoted as saying, “The swimming episode indicated that the testing of athletes before a major event, which could be an Olympic Games and maybe world championships, a portion of it at least should be done by an independent organization, not by the national antidoping body. The risk is, whether true or perceived, that they might have a conflict of interest or they might be biased, because if the national hero tests positive this could be an issue for the country.”
The working group might offer findings as early as March. “This is not something that would take ages to be implemented,” Niggli told NYT.
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Earlier, Russia was accused of swapping samples, and Kamila Valieva, a 15-year-old figure skating star, competing despite testing again for trimeradizine.
Interestingly, US Anti-Doping Agency chief executive, Travis T. Tygart, stated the push to take responsibility away from domestic testers was an “overreaction to the conduct of a couple of bad apples.” He cited Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones as American athletes his agency’s testing had helped expose. NYT noted that WADA said the United States’ testing regime wasn’t above reproach, criticizing it for breaching the rules over a decade ago by allowing athletes who had failed tests to continue competing. ‘In that case, U.S. officials said, the athletes had been permitted to keep competing so they could work undercover to assist in a criminal investigation into human and drug trafficking, which resulted in convictions,’ NYT wrote.
Niggli told NYT under the new system, testing before competitions could be handed over to “private companies, which already carry out antidoping work, or greater responsibility could be given to the I.T.A.”
There are also those skeptical of the independence of that agency, which receives millions of dollars in annual funding from the International Olympic Committee and includes representatives of the committee itself, as per NYT.
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NYT noted that on Monday, the Italian news media reported that an Italian biathlete, Rebecca Passler, had tested positive for a banned substance in what was believed to be the first doping case in the run-up to the Winter Games.
