how does the World Anti-Doping Agency work in the middle of a storm?

Less than a hundred days before the opening of the Paris 2024 Games, the specter of doping continues to haunt high-level sport. An investigation carried out by German public television ARD and the New York Times revealed on Saturday April 20 that 23 Chinese swimmers, including several future Olympic champions in Tokyo, had tested positive in early 2021, without being sanctioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Normally, an athlete testing positive for a banned substance is automatically suspended by national anti-doping agencies, as required by WADA. “No source provided credible evidence of wrongdoing”however, affirmed Monday the world policeman, while the Chinese government rejected allegations “fallacious”.

The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) has called for an overhaul of the World Anti-Doping Agency and an independent investigation into the matter. A possible secession of USADA from WADA raises fears of a collapse of the international anti-doping system, while the United States is the largest financial contributor to the world policeman.

Festina affair at the origin of the AMA

The idea of ​​creating an international anti-doping body emerged in 1998, when several doping cases, notably that affecting the Festina team, hit the Tour de France and more broadly professional cycling. Following this crisis, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) organized a world conference on doping in Lausanne in February 1999, leading to the creation of an independent international anti-doping agency.

On November 10, 1999, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was founded to develop, harmonize and coordinate anti-doping rules and policies in all sports and all countries. It is composed and financed in equal parts by the Olympic movement and governments.

Strengthening the anti-doping system

One of WADA’s main activities is to monitor and enforce the World Anti-Doping Code, adopted in 2004, which sets unique rules for sports organizations and public authorities around the world. Its application is also imposed by the International Convention against Doping in Sport of 2005, ratified by 190 countries and regions.

WADA also supervises the implementation of “international standards”, which define in particular the list of prohibited substances and methods and the planning of controls.

In twenty-five years of existence, WADA has enabled the introduction of a biological passport, the whereabouts obligations of athletes, cooperation with investigation services or the pharmaceutical industry, and the improvement of methods detection, which have strengthened the international anti-doping system.

A contested authority

WADA’s record seemed strong until 2014, when its weaknesses came to light with the institutional doping scandal in Russia for the Sochi Winter Olympics. Coaches warned of tests or positive results cleared… A massive system of corruption within the Russian national anti-doping agency and the Moscow laboratory – although supervised by WADA – was revealed in December 2014.

In July 2016, a few weeks before the Rio Games, WADA called for all Russian athletes to be banned after publishing the first part of a report which confirmed a state doping system in Russia, an opinion ignored by the Committee Olympic international, which leaves the international federations to decide on a case-by-case basis. WADA’s sanctions were also called into question for the first time in 2018, with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) overturning part of the sanctions imposed on the Russian Olympic Committee.

In December 2019, WADA excluded Russia from all international competition for four years, for having transmitted doctored data, a historic sanction in the history of sporting justice. However, this duration was reduced to two years in December 2020 by the CAS, after the Russians appealed the WADA decision.