Will China’s doping controversy sink the Olympics?

‘Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together’ is the Olympic motto and it is likely that all but the last of these elements will apply to the fast-moving dispute between the United States and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) over positive tests by Chinese athletes. While there will be intensive coverage as the Paris Olympics unfold, the longer-term impacts also need consideration.

In late 2020 and early 2021, 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for trace amounts of trimetazidine — a banned substance. The investigation by the China Anti-Doping Agency concluded the substance had been accidentally ingested via environmental contamination in a hotel kitchen. The athletes were allowed to compete in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. The China Anti-Doping Agency investigation was audited by World Aquatics and then reviewed by WADA who determined that ‘according to all the available evidence — scientific and otherwise — this was not a case of doping but rather one of no-fault, environmental contamination’ .

In May 2024, a US congressional committee called on the US Department of Justice and International Olympic Committee (IOC) to inquire into WADA’s decision to allow the athletes to compete in Tokyo, invoking the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act of 2019 (RADA) to motivate the Department of Justice. The congressional committee has heard evidence from US athletes and the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

While WADA were invited to have a representative appear before the committee, it declined. WADA’s Director General said WADA would not heed the calls for the 23 athlete case files to be released to the US government because they were confidential and it would respond in kind to Chinese authorities if they request US athlete case files. According to a report by The New York Times On July 4, the US Department of Justice investigation has begun.

During the Paris 2024 Olympics, different elements of this scandal will continue to play out. The opportunity for political point scoring — both domestic and abroad — will be irresistible to leaders in both countries. But the devil is in the details of RADA and the extraterritorial powers the United States has granted itself to criminalize doping conspiracies in elite sporting competitions across the world.

The RADA legislation was drafted in the wake of the revelations made by whistleblower Dr Grigory Rodchenkov that the Russian government had systematically corrupted anti-doping processes and WADA’s failure to suspend the Russian Anti-Doping Agency for missing an imposed deadline in 2018. In 2015, the United States had exercised its extraterritorial powers by having 14 FIFA officials arrested in Switzerland over bribery allegations related to broadcast rights.

The current investigation demonstrates that the United States is not only willing to create an extraterritorial enforcement regime against sports corruption, but also has the political will to exercise such powers. A key limitation to RADA is the requirement for dual criminality to be met under extradition treaties — that is an offense must be punishable under the laws of both of the treaty states.

While RADA criminalizes doping conspiracies in the United States, this is relatively new national law and not a common offense globally. Without dual criminality, most officials and organizations like WADA or national sporting organizations tainted by doping scandals can safely ignore this reality — for now.

The next Summer Olympics will be the 2028 Los Angeles games and the IOC has just announced Salt Lake City as the hosts for the 2034 Winter Olympics. Any official of an organization suspected by the United States of breaching RADA will likely find themselves under the jurisdiction of RADA.

The Salt Lake City Winter Olympics contract comes with a clause to protect WADA. Language has been added, according to John Coates, Chair of the IOC Legal Affairs Commission to ‘protect the integrity of the international anti-doping system’.

Nudging local, state or federal laws is not unusual for the IOC. The IOC provides model criminal law against match-fixing and adherence to the WADA code and anti-doping measures are a requirement for host nations as well as individual sports. Even Olympic-related intellectual property requires legislative safeguards.

What we have in effect is a clash between three powerful actors — two nation states and the Olympic movement. Each is concerned with their prestige. China cannot acknowledge the possibility of systemic doping as it was uncovered in the Russian case, while the United States refuses to acknowledge the possibility of environmental contamination although WADA agreed environmental contamination was reasonable for the positive tests.

The IOC has much to lose if the two most powerful nations in the world cannot compete amicably on the sporting field.

It is difficult to avoid conflating the position of nations given international sport is an exercise in soft power. While the US Congress is acting, other nations and their anti-doping agencies will take different positions, with many remaining neutral. The strong sporting nations — rich countries who can invest in recreational activities — will have a voice. This said, such conflicts are mainly the politics of sport, rather than that of nations. A repeat of the 1980 and 1984 Cold War era boycotts of the Moscow and Los Angeles Olympic Games would be far more damaging today given the rise of Asia in global sports.

Adam Masters is Executive Director of the Transnational Research Institute on Corruption at The Australian National University.

#

The post Will China’s doping controversy sink the Olympics? first appeared on East Asia Forum.