‘No credible evidence’: WADA hits back

‘No credible evidence’: WADA hits back

Worldwide outrage at the World Anti-Doping Agency’s behaviour has not moved it to accept any fault and instead enraged officials who have declared they would take “whatever action necessary” to defend allegations of a cover-up during their investigation into Chinese swimmers testing positive for a banned drug.

Revelations that 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for trimetazidine (TMZ), which can enhance performance, ahead of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 were not provisionally suspended and then cleared to compete has raised the ire of swimmers from all over the world and other leading anti-doping agencies.

United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA head Travis Tygart said WADA and the Chinese anti-doping body, which investigated and cleared the swimmers citing contaminated samples, had “secretly, until now, swept these positives under the carpet” and called the situation a “potential cover-up”.

WADA accepted China’s explanation that athletes’ samples were contaminated by food served in a kitchen at team accommodation during a camp.

But WADA president Witold Banka told an online news conference overnight that the anti-doping body had “followed the whole due process and diligently investigated every line of inquiry in this matter” and strongly defended its actions.

“If we had to do it over again now, we would do exactly the same thing.” Banka said.

“No credible evidence of wrongdoing was provided by any source who came forward on this file, so the threshold for WADA intelligence and investigations to open an investigation was not met.”