Wada declares itself the winner in doping debate by 23 Chinese swimmers

In the debate of 23 Chinese swimmers, which were tested positively for a cardiac medication before the summer games 2021, the World-Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has achieved an outstanding legal success. The Wada is now at least judged by itself: in the “Court of Public opinion”, the view has prevailed that the affair had been acted correctly. This is how Wada President Witold Banka and his Secretary General Olivier Niggli sketch it in an internal letter to the Wada Executive Committee, from which the portal “Honest Sport” quotes.

Unfortunately, the report does not show on which opinion research institutes the WADA is based. In the large number of athletes, top swimmers and national anti-doping agencies that have heavily criticized the WADA in the affair, the verdict self-made should at best provoke joy-even in the light of a second news that Banks and Niggli reveal in their letter . Accordingly, the Wada has withdrawn her complaint against Travis Tygart, the managing director of the American anti-doping agency. Tygart had covered the Wada with a wave of criticism and, among other things, claimed that the agency had “covered up” the positive cases of the Chinese swimmers.

The agency still sees it completely differently, as Banka and Niggli now write: “But we have found that it is senseless to argue with someone who does not accept clear evidence and whose goal is the wada and the global anti -Doping system to damage. ” And because the Wada is undoubtedly washed in front of the tribunal in front of the public, the resources would rather be used to “work with everyone involved for the benefit of all athletes worldwide”.

Is such a noble motif alone behind this train? A month ago, the outgoing US government had under Joe Biden, Her annual grant to the Wada, just under 3.5 million euros. They only want to release them when the wada drops the lawsuit against Tygart and undergo an external examination. Linda Helland, the former Wada Vice President from Norway, recently asked her government to also freeze the Norwegian annual contribution of almost 1.9 million euros. The current anti-doping supervision apparently is primarily concerned with “protecting the interests of those dark forces who want to destroy sport”, Helleland said the newspaper VG. Lars Mortsiefer, board member of the German Nada, Had asked the Wada to do so last yearto have the case checked independently.

The Chinese anti-doping agency (Chinada) tested 23 of its swimmers in January 2021 for the trimetacid woman who was banned in sports, then quickly acquired collectively: an internal examination showed-months after the alleged contamination in the middle of the Covid pandemic and one extreme strict hygiene protocols in China – that the remedy via the hotel kitchen in the food the athlete must have come. Wada-officials initially doubted this internally, but then accepted the procedure. Some of the swimmers won Olympic medals months later.

In tennis, the Wada has long been involved in the next debate

Than the New York Times And the ARD released the processes last year, the Wada defended itself: all the clues would not have allowed any other conclusion than those who had presented the Chinese. When the WADA in the middle of the growing criticism chose its own investigator for a supervision, the new criticism aroused – like the fact that Eric Cottier, the responsible investigator, had granted hardly any time and a limited mandate. Cottier, a former Swiss public prosecutor, then found in his reportthat the Wada acted impartially and according to its rules. At the same time, he criticized that these rules and processes were partly deficient. He also found that the Chinada failed to inform the positively tested swimmers from the tests and to block them temporarily. In the meantime, new doubts about the contamination hypothesis report: The 23 swimmers would have Maybe not used to the same hotel in the period in question – How could 23 athletes collectively be contaminated by the same hotel meal?

Witold Banka and Olivier Niggli, the WADA fees, reach a completely different Conclusio in their latest letter. “The world, excluding Mr. Tygart, has accepted the results of the Cottier report and has the desire to look ahead.” In any case, it is clear from where the view is going for the Wada: For a few days, she has had to make a massive impression for a few days that she had made it too easy to get the tennis world list of Jannik Sinner too easily after a positive test.