Prior to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) clearing 23 Chinese swimmers of intentionally taking performance enhancers, China’s government contributed nearly $2 million above its yearly requirements to WADA programs, including one designed to strengthen the agency’s investigations and intelligence unit.
The Associated Press obtained confidential minutes from meetings of the WADA executive committee that list China as having given $993,000 in 2018 and $992,000 in 2019, two years that led to one of its Olympians being elected as one of the agency’s vice presidents.
The Chinese contributions were part of a pattern that illustrates the country’s growing influence on the drug-fighting agency at about the same time WADA’s relationship with its biggest contributor, the United States, was fraying.
There is no indication from the documents AP reviewed that China donated the money in expectation of a quid pro quo to gloss over positive drug tests. In fact, WADA didn’t hide the extra funding; it put out a little-noticed news release in December 2020 announcing China’s $992,000 donation.
“All this was done in total transparency,” WADA director general Olivier Niggli said Monday during a news conference to discuss the case. “And frankly, the (question) has absolutely nothing to do with what we are discussing today. So, the optics is a question (I appreciate), but I have absolutely no problem with the relationship we have with China.”
By 2021, the U.S. was sparring with WADA over passage of a new law written to combat doping in response to the long-running drug scandal in Russia. It also was withholding part of its payment, with the country’s top government representative in the world anti-doping structure referencing “sorry state of affairs” that existed in WADA’s governance.
While the U.S. tangled with WADA, China was chipping in on what was essentially a fundraising effort by WADA to ramp up its fledgling intelligence and investigations (I&I) program, which played a role in the current case.
That China was about to host the 2022 Winter Olympics and India was on board to host a key IOC meeting could have played into the donations. The giving also came in the leadup to the November 2019 election of IOC member Yang Yang of China to WADA vice president.
Last year, according to another WADA document seen by the AP, the Chinese sports products company ANTA Sports signed a three-year deal to provide WADA-branded sports apparel. Among the other groups ANTA sponsors are China’s national swimming federation and the Chinese Olympic committee.
Even a provisional suspension at that time could have put those swimmers’ eligibility for the games in jeopardy. WADA used its news conference to defend and explain its process, saying in essence there was no effective way to win a case based on countering China’s claims that the swimmers had been subject to contamination.
Of the 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive, 13 competed in Tokyo and four of those 13 won medals. Many of the athletes still compete for China and are expected to swim at this year’s Paris Olympics.
At a 2019 meeting, IOC President Thomas Bach had committed the Olympic body to matching government contributions up to $2.5 million. But about a year later, according to Erdener, the Turkish IOC member who reported on the fundraising, only China had stepped up to pay.
