The World Anti-Doping Authority’s ‘case resolution agreement’ with men’s tennis world No.1 Jannik Sinner, who tested positive for a banned substance twice in March 2024, shrank his possible punishment from between one and two years to three months. In summary, WADA concluded that the Italian “did not intend to cheat” and “his exposure to clostebol did not provide any performance-enhancing benefit,” etc.
While global tennis has responded with some confusion and much frustration, there was anger in the Spanish media which highlighted the difference between WADA’s treatment of Sinner as opposed to Spanish figure skater Laura Barquero. Barquero was banned for six years after testing positive also for clostebol.
In her Instagram appeal Barquero, 23, explained that clostebol is used in an ointment/cream or a spray called Trofodermin sold over the counter in Italy to heal skin wounds. It is not used as performance enhancer and it has caused, she said, “dozens and dozens of misfortunes of Italian athletes”. She underwent another independent test on her hair to determine the difference between chronic usage or accidental exposure – the test determining accidental exposure.
Barquero accepted the six-year sentence “to get on with my life” but called the anti-doping rules “rigid and insensitive” and said the long ban was “disproportionate and unfair”. WADA then emailed the Associated Press a statement saying that Barquero’s “version of how the substance entered her system was unconvincing in light of the evidence, such that the circumstances remained unknown as far as WADA was concerned.”
Focus on WADA process
What is obvious is that thanks to the spotlight from world tennis, it is WADA that is also, finally, in the dock. Its current rulings happen to belong to a high-profile sport like tennis and not the usual string of not-so-famous athletes like Barquero from Olympic sports. Novak Djokovic called the Sinner ruling “favouritism”, saying the decision was “inconsistent” and “unfair”.
Women’s world No.1 Aryna Sabalenka, while not passing judgement on Sinner or indeed Iga Swiatek who had also tested positive last year and received a one-month suspension, said: “I don’t see how I can trust the system.”
World No.5 Jessica Pegula said, “the process seemed not to be a process”.
Exactly. For too long it appears WADA has pronounced judgement on a slew of athletes from its lofty pulpit, casting out many athletes, particularly those from less-powerful nations with little access to top-flight legal teams like those on Sinner’s side.
Australian researchers at the University of Canberra, Dr Catherine Ordway and Richard Vaughan, recently published two articles in The Conversation, one about WADA’s ruling and governance shortcomings and the other about its funding.
The articles highlight WADA’s own inconsistencies in its rulings and in outcomes on athletes. In their first article about the Swiatek-Sinner double whammy, Ordway and Vaughan’s write, “the biggest challenge for WADA is how to achieve its goal of standardising procedures across all sports, while also considering each individual case on its own merits.” The article cited cases across sport which were similar to the tennis pros. Swiatek received a one-month suspension from the International Tennis Integrity Agency after successfully arguing that her sleep medicine had unintentionally been contaminated.
The Simona Halep case
Former women’s world No.1 Simona Halep had been banned for 18 months for a contaminated supplement in a case similar to Swiatek’s — for which she had originally been banned for four years. Ordway-Vaughan then cite the case of Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva – her banned substance was identical to Swiatek’s but her WADA ban was six years. Aussie swimmer Shayna Jack, who also argued that she had unintentionally ingested a minute amount of a banned substance, had to raise A$50,000 through crowd funding to pay her legal bills.
These are, in the words of Ordway and Vaughan, obvious “systemic inequities between high-profile and lower-ranked athletes” which need to be addressed – both by WADA and sports governing bodies. WADA also exists with another thorny truth: set up in November 1999, it is a Foundation/NGO funded in a private public partnership, both by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and by individual member nations through governments.
The flaws in this structure cannot be more obvious today. Like the US’ handling of its contribution to WADA. The US gives approx. $3.6m, about 13% of the total $26.5m WADA budget component from 180 government nations, but has chosen to freeze its 2024 contribution. The reason given by the US is that WADA did not appeal the Chinese anti-doping agency’s “no fault” finding on the cases of 23 Chinese swimmers. The swimmers had tested positive for trimetazidine (TMZ) before the Tokyo Olympics, with meat contamination at their hotel being given as the reason behind the mass positive tests. After the US decision to suspend funding, the Guardian newspaper reported that the UK and European Union were being urged to withdraw their financial support from WADA.
‘Fox guarding the henhouse’
WADA’s funding model has been described by Ordway as the “fox guarding the henhouse” because “WADA relies heavily on funding from stakeholders which have the highest number of doping cases to investigate”. Like China, Russia and the US. Ironically, US sprinter Erriyon Knighton ran his 200m in Paris 2024 despite testing positive for trenbolone in March last year. The US Anti-Doping Agency appeals arbitrator accepted Knighton’s defence of having consumed, guess what – contaminated meat.
Ordway and Vaughan write that, “The danger is that WADA could be strong-armed into making decisions to suit major funders… if you are being paid by the organisations that have a vested interest in the outcomes, it could create a fundamental conflict of interest.” While the WADA Code of Ethics does involve copious mentions of ‘conflict of interest’ and disclosures required, this most obvious of conflicts – the fact the biggest funders also have the most doping cases against them – is deftly ignored.
As an NGO/Foundation, WADA does not possess any responsibility (as a company might) towards its millions of stakeholders in competitive sport and has always escaped questions of accountability. There is no independent authority outside of the WADA’s own Foundation Board that oversees the decisions taken by WADA’s Executive Committee. (The WADA EC is the group involved in day-to-day management of global anti-doping measures and actions around it.) For this to happen to an organisation that passes judgement on the careers and progress of athletes of all nationalities and athletic standards appears, at best, lax. At worst, it is both unfair and dangerous.
Ordway and Vaughan recommend, among other things, the setting up of a “neutral independently managed global trust fund, drawn from “a small percentage of global sporting revenues, such as broadcasting rights, sponsorship deals, or ticket sales.” Surely, the grandees of global sport know that if WADA and anti-doping’s broken structures – and it is badly broken – has to be fixed, this is the best place to start.
