Report Concludes China Broke Rules in Doping Case but Clears WADA

The World Anti-Doping Agency’s executive board on Thursday eagerly embraced a report that validated its decision to clear 23 elite Chinese swimmers of doping, even as the report’s author pointed out Chinese officials had violated established rules in their handling of the incident.

The final report, written by a Swiss prosecutor, Eric Cottier, who was handpicked by WADA, effectively absolved the global antidoping regulator of wrongdoing in its handling of the Chinese case, which had drawn scorn from Olympic athletes, prompted skepticism from global antidoping experts and sparked a bitter feud with the Biden administration.

The decision to quietly clear the athletes, without ever revealing their positive tests, had hung like a cloud over the pool deck at the Paris Olympics and raised broader concerns over the efficacy of the global antidoping system.

Mr. Cottier also concluded that there had been no bias toward China in the handling of the swimmers’ cases. And he appeared to dismiss reporting by The New York Times and other organizations that has challenged WADA’s actions in multiple so-called mass contamination events involving Chinese swimmers while simultaneously recommending that antidoping officials move to tighten their rules and processes related to such cases.

Yet the report provided no definitive conclusion to the underlying question of doping by Chinese athletes, and nothing to assuage fears of a conspiracy that continues to proliferate in elite swimming. “The sense of justice or injustice,” the report said, “goes far beyond the scope of this investigation.”

Controversy and uncertainty had hovered over the board meeting at a Turkish resort amid attempts to bar a Biden administration official who sits on the WADA