WADA made reasonable decision in China doping case despite doubts of its own scientist, probe says

An investigator backed the World Anti-Doping Agency’s handling of a doping case involving 23 Chinese swimmers, while also publishing notes highlighting WADA’s own science director expressing doubts about China’s explanation of how the athletes had been subject to contamination.

WADA released an interim report Tuesday from the Swiss prosecutor it chose for the probe, Eric Cottier, who concluded he found no evidence that WADA showed favoritism toward China in its handling of the case.

Cottier also said WADA made a “reasonable” decision by taking the word of authorities in China who determined the swimmers ingested a banned heart medication, residue of which was found in a kitchen at the hotel where the athletes were staying.

Eleven of the swimmers who tested positive were allowed to keep competing after WADA chose not to pursue the case in 2021 are now slated to swim at the Paris Olympics starting later this month.

In an annex to his interim report, Cottier described WADA chief scientist Olivier Rabin as unable to exclude the contamination scenario, and so faced with “no other solution than to accept it, even if he continued to have doubts about the reality of contamination as described by the Chinese authorities.”

Any doubts he had, Rabin said in a news release accompanying the report, were not enough to give WADA a reasonable chance at winning an appeal of the Chinese decision.

“In this case, despite our skepticism, a thorough review of all the verifiable facts of the case revealed no evidence to challenge the contamination scenario,” Rabin said. “Rather, all the available evidence pointed towards no-fault contamination versus intentional ingestion.”

WADA President Witold Banka said Cottier’s probe confirmed “that there was