LAUSANNE:
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) said that it has dropped legal action against the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and its chief Travis Tygart over a dispute about Chinese swimmers testing positive for a banned substance in 2021.
“In the interest of moving on and focusing our efforts on strengthening the global anti-doping system… WADA has made the decision to withdraw the lawsuit against Mr. Tygart and USADA,” a WADA spokesperson told AFP.
“Over several months, Travis Tygart made incessant defamatory allegations against WADA without any supporting evidence in relation to its review of the no-fault contamination cases involving 23 swimmers from China.”
Tygart had accused WADA of a cover-up when it cleared the Chinese swimmers to compete in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 despite testing positive for a banned medication, trimetazidine.
He has long been a critic of WADA attacking them in the aftermath of the Russian state-sponsored doping scheme surrounding the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
In January, Tygart supported a US government decision to withhold a WADA dues payment of $3.6 million.
The WADA spokesperson said that the body had responded with a lawsuit in Switzerland, citing “an attack on WADA’s reputation, based on groundless conspiracy theories.”
In the case of the Chinese swimmers, WADA says it was not at fault in accepting the “food contamination” explanation put forward by the Chinese authorities.
It said it considers the matter closed since a report it commissioned from Swiss prosecutor Eric Cottier found that WADA had worked “autonomously, independently and professionally”.
The WADA spokesperson said that the findings had cleared the body’s reputation, making legal action unneccessary.
“Given the clear findings of the Cottier report, which have been universally accepted by the anti-doping community and wider public, that aim has been achieved.” AFP