Dick Pound, a former Canadian swimming champion and the founding president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), told Reuters on Tuesday that the United States could lose Olympic hosting rights over its investigation of Chinese swimmers involved in a contamination controversy from 2021.
American law enforcement is examining the Chinese doping controversy under the Rodchenkov Act, which was passed in 2020 to extend U.S. jurisdiction to international sporting competitions featuring American athletes or financial connections. Named after the Russian whistleblower, the legislation yielded its first guilty plea last May against a man charged with distributing banned substances to a Nigerian sprinter before the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Earlier this month, World Aquatics confirmed that the U.S. had launched a federal investigation into the 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for a banned substance in 2021 and still competed at the Tokyo Olympics later that year. In May, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency traded jabs with WADA, alleging a cover-up by claiming that the global anti-doping authority swept the 23 positive tests “under the carpet.”
“That legislation is non-compliant with the anti-doping code,” Pound said of the Rodchenkov Act. “My guess is that one of the steps that WADA is going to take at this point is to turn this particular issue over to the compliance review committee.
“Which I suspect, if or when there’s a hearing on it, they will declare the United States non-compliant,” he added. “It would mean they could not host the Olympics.”
It’s most likely too late in the game to strip Los Angeles of 2028 Summer Olympics hosting rights with contracts already signed and so many plans established. But Pound said the International Olympic Committee (IOC) could delay its confirmation of Salt Lake City as host of the 2034 Winter Olympics at its annual congress next week over displeasure with the Rodchenkov Act.
“There’s certainly an opportunity, because apparently we have a session in Puerto Rico in November,” Pound said. “An easy way to finesse that would be to say, well listen these would be Games in the Americas maybe that’s the lace we should make our announcement in Puerto Rico. If I were king of the mountain, I would call up (U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee chair) Gene Sykes and say, listen the drums are starting to beat here and it’s this legislation that puts the U.S. offside.”
Eleven of the 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive in 2021 are set to compete at the Paris Olympics, which begin in just over a week. The most notable swimmers who tested positive were Tokyo Olympic champions Zhang Yufei and Wang Shun, and 2023 triple world champion and world record holder Qin Haiyang.
And Covid didn’t come from a lab…..yeah, right.
The case becomes intriguing and convoluted.
Quoted as Reuters’ reporting:
https://www.reuters.com/sports/olympics/us-risk-losing-both-2028-2034-olympics-says-pound-2024-07-16/
“WADA had no comment when asked about taking the U.S. to the non-compliant review committee but other anti-doping officials who did not want to be named confirmed the idea is being discussed.”
“With contracts signed and advance plans in place, stripping Los Angeles of the 2028 Olympics is unlikely.
Yet Pound told Reuters that the IOC might consider delaying the confirmation of Salt Lake City as host of the 2034 Winter Olympics.”
I’m sorry but why do people named Dick always have last names that work too hilariously with their first name.
Gooooood luck Dick on finding somewhere else to cough up lots of money to host in less than 4 years.
Oh … and though dost protest too much about the US review of your supposedly ‘independent review’
And finally… do you know who really ‘pays’ for the Olympics? NBC does… and they are not going to let you take away the LA Olympics
I agree it’s a bit too late to take the LA Olympics away and the story does say that. But WADA has been found wanting over this issue of Chinese alleged doping and it just seems to me that this is a bit of a threat that they probably have no ability to act on. Pissed poor performance by WADA all around I’d say.
Usually I’d tell him to go pound sand, but I mean
Interesting standards they have for choosing/denying host countries. Somehow, Bejing hosted only 14 years apart (08 and 22) which seems ridiculous considering how many worthy cities there are worldwide. Now they are considering banning us for investigating them? How much of WADA’s budget is supplied by China? They proved in 2020 they are good at paying to cover things up. The IOC will probably replace Salt Lake with Wuhan for 2034.
The thing is, what does FBI have to do with swimming?
It’s more about the cover up that happened afterwards. In my opinion it’s a hard sell for the US to exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction over events in China, ans at the various WADA offices.
Realistically investigating WADA officials based at their HQ in Montreal under Canadian foreign anti corruption legislation makes more sense. There are Canadian athletes who were affected and could file a complaint.
Why do you bring up the FBI?
My guy Dick Pound decided to rawdog that misinformation quite ungentlemanly
Dick Pound is a great guy to grab brewskies with. I hung out with him and Bradley P Kline in ‘02 at a conference is Latvia. Couldn’t have been nicer. He shared with us the origins of his name. I promised not to tell anyone, so i won’t do it here, but let’s just say he’s lived up to it. Enough said….