Dick Pound Claims U.S. Non-Compliant With WADA, Could Lose Olympic Hosting Rights

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.