Among WADA’s critics is the White House, which denounced it in a letter to the organization’s president last month, but the Biden administration can and should do more to hold the international doping regulator accountable.
The Biden administration official leading the U.S. fight against doping in sports is Rahul Gupta, a physician and director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (often referred to as the country’s “drug czar.”) This is because the U.S. does not have a minister of sports or a minister of culture like many other countries, so Congress delegated that task to the ONDCP.
This makes Gupta the de facto U.S. representative to international governing bodies such as WADA, and because of his past advocacy for greater oversight of WADA, he also sits on the Executive Committee, which, according to WADA rules, is “responsible for overseeing the organization’s operations.”
Surprisingly, Gupta said in an interview that the committee didn’t know about the Chinese positive tests until hours before the news broke in April. “This is something that has never been discussed before in the executive committee or any other forum that we’ve participated in,” Gupta said. “We were as surprised as everyone else.”
In other words, WADA’s leadership 3+ years The Olympic Committee requested that the revelation be reported to its own executive committee. A spokesperson for the organization told me that while the incident did not rise to the level of such a revelation, it was highly implausible. If the organization had followed standard protocols, it would have provisionally suspended all 23 athletes for 2021. This would have caused uproar in China and been a major problem for the international sports community, especially since China was scheduled to host the Winter Olympics in 2022.
An issue of such geopolitical importance would have required consultation with the Executive Committee, which is why the White House letter to WADA, also signed by Gupta, asks for an explanation as to why those committee members were not informed of WADA’s decision “as they have been in other prior doping cases” and calls for the creation of a truly independent committee to reopen the investigations into the 23 swimmers.
These are a good start, but the Biden administration should go further. New laws passed in 2020 give the US government the power to prosecute individuals for doping schemes at international sporting events involving US athletes. Prosecutors can seek fines of up to $1 million and up to 10 years in prison for doping conspiracy charges.
The Department of Justice should not hesitate to launch its own investigation into this matter. There is bipartisan pressure for such action. Last month, Reps. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) called on the attorney general and FBI director to investigate whether the doping allegations were state-sponsored. As the lawmakers wrote in their letter, such a finding “could justify further diplomatic action by the United States and the international community.”
The federal government should also seriously consider whether to continue funding WADA. The United States contributes more to WADA’s budget than any other country. Having a global regulatory body is important, but the rules cannot be applied arbitrarily and decisions should not be made in secret without oversight.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees WADA funding, told me that he and many of his colleagues have long been concerned about WADA’s lack of transparency. This incident, he said, “makes our worst fears come true.”
A few years ago, Van Hollen’s committee allowed the ONDCP to withhold U.S. membership dues to WADA. “We expect Dr. Gupta to take advantage of the significant tools available to him,” Van Hollen said. If WADA does not make the necessary reforms, Congress “may issue directives.” [the] ONDCP will withhold funding until the conditions are met.”
These are drastic measures but the circumstances demand them. This is not just about the 23 athletes who should have been sanctioned in the interest of fairness to the competition, it is also about the role of WADA and the future of international sport.
As head of the Biden administration, Gupta must make the choice clear: commit WADA to change its practices or divert resources to another organization that can hold the United States and its partners to the highest standards of fairness, integrity and transparency.
