Wada: Why the world’s anti-doping agency feels stuck between superpowers

The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) says it is “unfairly caught” in a row between the US and China, with their geopolitcal tensions spilling onto the Olympic stage.

China’s top swimmers have been in the spotlight after a slew of doping allegations, followed by contentious US claims that Wada was covering it up.

Chinese swimmers headed to Paris were drug-tested twice as much as some other nations, which, in turn, has fuelled accusations of a conspiracy to disrupt their performance.

Wada said in its statement on Tuesday, external that it had been caught in “the middle of geopolitical tensions between superpowers but has no mandate to participate in that”.

“Certain individuals [in the US] are attempting to score political points purely on the basis that the athletes in question are Chinese,” Wada head of media relations James Fitzgerald told the BBC. “The result is that it has created distrust and division within the anti-doping system.”

A trade war, geopolitical rivalries and Beijing’s friendship with Russia have soured relations between the world’s two largest economies.

It’s little surprise that some of those tensions play out in competitive sports but now they appear to be driving a harder – and harsher – wedge.

Last week, Wada had said it was considering legal action against its US counterpart, Usada, over “defamatory” accusations.

The latter had accused Wada and China’s anti-doping agency, Chinada, of being among the “dirty hands in burying positive tests and suppressing the voices of courageous whistleblowers”.

US lawmakers, too, have accused Wada of failing to investigate doping allegations against Chinese swimmers properly. And on Tuesday they introduced a bill that would give the White House power to cut funding to the agency.

“When members of congress and senators are inserting themselves into the largely technical world of anti-doping, it ceases to be about scientific and legal analysis, and it drifts into the political realm,” said Mr Fitzgerald.