Australian swimmer Zac Stubblety-Cook says WADA failed in 2024 paris Olympics press conference
Drug officials trying to defend accepting a Chinese explanation that 23 swimmers were positive from food contamination keep hitting criticism from clean athletes who aren’t buying it.
Australia’s leading swimmer Zac Stubblety-Cook said the World Anti Doping Agency system has “failed”, as drug officials desperately tried to defend accepting a Chinese explanation that 23 swimmers were positive from food contamination.
Stubblety-Cook, one of the considered members of the Australian swim team, underscored the depth of frustration in the swimming community about WADA’s apparent intransigence to fully investigate the China scandal.
Stubblety Cook said: “the system feels like its failed, that’s the truth. I can have the opinions but I am focussed on what I can control.”
His criticism comes as WADA president was accused of lying in a fiery and combative pre-games press conference on Thursday.
US seven time Olympic medallist Katie Ledecky had noted earlier: “I hope everyone here will compete clean this week. But what really matters is also, did they train clean? All we are asking is for these rules to be applied fairly and consistently throughout the world.”
WADA insisted it followed its rules and that it would examine new evidence, a statement called “a lie” by the investigative German journalist Haijo Seppelt investigated the Chinese swim story earlier this year.
Three weeks ago Seppelt revealed that not all of the 23 swimmers who had tested positive to the banned stimulant TMZ had been staying in the same hotel, even though the Chinese claimed the source of contamination came from a hotel kitchen.
WADA said its role was a regulator to protect the harmonisation of the anti doping system but its anger was directed at the US Rodchenko Act, which allows prison sentences of up to 10 years for doping conspirators at events involving US athletes, broadcasters and sponsors, saying the law was being used to undermine WADA.
In the combative pre-games press conference, WADA, who blames the US for undermining its work and creating controversy about the Chinese issue. WADA lashed out at the US drugs system for not being as robust as other countries.
Witold Banka, the WADA president, singling out the US college sports as being a gap in the fight against doping.
He said there is “incontrovertible truth that 90 percent of US athletes” allowed American college athletes to avoid the strict anti doping protocols applied throughout other parts of the world.
He said 75 percent of the current Olympians in the US team came from this particular college system. These athletes, once they reach international standard, are often tested by international sports federations.
WADA’s battles with the US is fresh off the back of the International Olympic Committee demanding a change in US government laws under fierce threats the IOC will terminate the 2034 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
When one British journalist asked Mr Banka if WADA was a lapdog for the IOC, Mr Banka said he wouldn’t answer as it left him “speechless”.
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