Commentary: World anti-doping body has a strong defence in Chinese swimming scandal, but narrative of ‘cover-up’ remains

CANBERRA: When the news broke last weekend that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive to a banned drug in early 2021 and were allowed to compete at the Tokyo Olympic Games six months later without sanction, many people - particularly in the Western world - immediately suspected a cover-up.

The US anti-doping boss, Travis Tygart, has been one of the most vocal critics of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), claiming the Chinese positive tests had been “swept under the carpet” by the body.

A few days later, the US Anti-Doping Agency stepped up its attacks, calling on governments and sports leaders to overhaul WADA and appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate the 23 positive cases in China.

WADA has been put on the defensive. It has threatened legal proceedings against Tygart for his “outrageous, completely false and defamatory remarks”. And it hosted a virtual media conference about the case, with a panel of the agency’s anti-doping heavyweights taking legal, scientific and sports governance questions for almost two hours.

Transparency is key to any organisation’s reputation. It is never a good look when a body like WADA is forced to respond to a story exposed by the media, in this case a German documentary and a New York Times report.

WADA has surely suffered reputational damage by not being open about the case when it unfolded three years ago. But it maintains it couldn’t have handled the situation differently because of the complexity of the global anti-doping framework between WADA and national anti-doping agencies.

It wasn’t up to WADA to make the details of the failed tests public - this responsibility rested with the China Anti-Doping Agency (CHINADA) because it had carried out the tests and