US athletes were allowed to cheat, according to the World Anti-Doping Agency

JAYRO SANCHEZ

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) assured this week it's a statement that its American counterpart, USADA, has allowed doping among the athletes it supervises for years. Its management team has also admitted that it was aware of these events since 2021.

The North American organization justified its actions before WADA by assuring that it was going to use the cheating athletes to obtain incriminating evidence against the rest of the people involved in these acts.

According to the agency, the law allows that "an athlete who provides substantial help" can be partially exonerated from the sanctions to which he has been subjected for committing such a crime. But he explains that "there is a process for this" and that this does not contemplate the possibility of letting him compete under unfair conditions to obtain these tests.

When it discovered what was happening, WADA did not punish USADA and only asked its leaders to dismantle their infiltration project.

The World Anti-Doping Code requires that in this type of case an action protocol based on: the disqualification of the results, the return of the prizes and the suspension of the participation of the doped in future competitions.

However, the American organization prevented WADA from taking these measures, warning it that its execution could put the safety of the infiltrated athletes at risk.

By confirming the reality of this threat through reports from its intelligence department, WADA decided to act with caution and not reveal any data about the athletes.

Despite this, it has been forced to issue all these statements when the American and Chinese anti-doping organizations exchanged mutual accusations of cheating at the 2024 Olympic Games, held in the city of Paris.

The controversy was started by the famous American swimmer Michael Phelps, when China beat the USA for the first time in the 4x100 meter medley relay swimming event after the latter had held victory in it for 15 consecutive editions.

The athlete accused four Chinese athletes of doping, taking advantage of the fact that they were already in the crosshairs of WADA because they had consumed meat contaminated with a banned substance called trimetazidine. In the end, the body concluded that the matter was an accident and decided to let the Asian country's elite athletes continue with the competition.

Instead, WADA acknowledges in its statement that USADA has allowed at least three athletes who had committed very serious doping violations to continue competing in sporting events with the excuse that they were its undercover agents to find out who else was doping. .

Jayro sanchez is a Spanish journalist