The war between the United States and China is commercial and Olympic

 

PASCUAL SERRANO

On August 7, the Reuters agency uncovered a serious complaint which has gone largely unnoticed in the Western media. The US Anti-Doping Agency (Usada) allowed several athletes it had discovered between 2011 and 2014 violating anti-doping rules to continue competing then without being sanctioned.

The excuse given by the US authorities is that it was part of a plan for them to act covertly and continue competing without being prosecuted in exchange for information about other offenders. USADA maintains that the tactic is necessary and permitted, and wants to continue using it.

Given these facts, the response from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has not been long in coming: “This USADA scheme threatens the integrity of sports competition that the World Anti-Doping Code seeks to protect. By implementing it, USADA was clearly violating the rules. Contrary to USADA's claims, WADA did not condone this practice of allowing cheaters to compete for years with the promise that they would try to obtain incriminating evidence against others.”

In fact, “when WADA learned of this practice in 2021, many years after it had begun, it immediately ordered USADA to desist.”

Under the World Anti-Doping Code, to which USADA is a signatory, an athlete who “substantially” assists a doping investigation can request that a percentage of his or her ineligibility be suspended after prosecution. But there is no specific language saying that athletes who have violated anti-doping rules can continue to compete without being prosecuted and sanctioned.
The suggestion that this code "can be used to justify failing to prosecute a case for years while doped athletes are sent back into the field as undercover informants to compete against clean athletes is obviously wrong," the World Anti-Doping Agency said.

Curiously, the relaxation shown by the US agency for the recognized doping of its athletes becomes excessive demands when it comes to athletes from another country, especially if it is the one that most threatens its dominance in the Olympic medal table.

USADA denounced the doping of 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for a substance called trimetazidine (TMZ), a drug that apparently increases blood flow to the heart, months before the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

Investigations showed that the swimmers were staying in a hotel where traces of TMZ were discovered in the kitchen, which explains why they were inadvertently exposed and the result of that analysis. .
The World Anti-Doping Agency considered the investigation valid and considered that there was no reason for sanction. The incident was not made public at the time.

Some of those swimmers won medals in Tokyo and have competed in the Paris Olympics.

The United States Anti-Doping Agency accused to the World Agency of covering up the scandal and called for the organization to be reformed and continues to air it four years later to discredit Chinese athletes.

It should also be remembered that two independent investigations, one by Swiss prosecutor Eric Cottier who investigated WADA's handling of the case and the other an audit of World Aquatics, reached similar conclusions that there was no mismanagement or cover-up on the part of China and its athletes.

But the US Anti-Doping Agency remains unconvinced by the findings and has accused the global agency of mishandling the case and urged the US Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate.

And meanwhile, at least three American athletes who had violated anti-doping regulations were allowed to compete for years as undercover agents for USADA. USADA did not inform the World Anti-Doping Agency, as required, while there were also no regulations permitting such practices under the World Anti-Doping Code or USADA rules.

One of those cases was an elite athlete who admitted to having used steroids and EPO, although he was authorized to compete until he retired. This athlete's results were never annulled nor was his case made public. USADA argued that making the doping violations public would jeopardize his safety.

In another case, a high-performance athlete had his suspension lifted by USADA, but without WADA's knowledge.

Perhaps this policy of the American sports authorities of hiding their own doping and denouncing Chinese doping not recognized by world authorities is the result of a medal panorama different from that of 1984 in Los Angeles.

That year, the United States achieved first place in the world with 83 gold medals and China was limited to fourth with only 15 medals. In Paris, both have 40 gold medals, which in reality, in the case of China, are 42, because those from Hong Kong, which is part of China, are counted separately.

And that's with the United States paying athletes $37.500 per gold medal, something that China does not pay.

Pascual Serrano is a journalist and writer. His last book is "Forbidden to doubt. The ten weeks in which Ukraine changed the world”