Chinese doping case sparks unusually harsh spat between global and US drug-fighting agencies

Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency and the head of the US drug-fighting organisation, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics.

On Saturday, Wada it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by Travis Tygart, the CEO of the US Anti-Doping Agency, who said the world and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world”.

The allegation was made after Wada acknowledged it had cleared 23 Chinese swimmers who had tested positive for a banned heart medication to compete at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 after agreeing with that country’s authorities that the samples had been contaminated.

Wada defended its process, and said it acted in good faith and according to due process when it decided not to challenge the Chinese explanation for the positives. It then turned its attention to Tygart, saying his comments were politically motivated and that it was “astonished by the outrageous, completely false and defamatory remarks” he made.

The global body pointed out that Usada had, several times over the years, accepted “similar conclusions of contamination involving a number of US athletes” and that Tygart “should realise that it is not only American athletes who can fall victim to situations of no-fault contamination”.

Tygart came back with another statement, noting the difference between his organisation’s handling of contamination cases and this one. The Chinese case involves a medication called trimetazidine (TMZ), the same drug taken by banned Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva before the Winter Olympics in Beijing in 2022.