The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) may revoke the status of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), which would lead to a ban on hosting major competitions, including the 2028 and 2034 Olympics. This opinion was expressed by the honorary president of WADA and member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Richard Pound, quoted by Reuters and BTA.
The reason for the sanction may be the "Rodchenkov Act" adopted in 2020, which is used by the USA to investigate the positive results of the doping tests of 23 Chinese swimmers. "The Rodchenkov Law" applies to all competitions conducted in accordance with the rules of the organization and provides for the possibility of prosecution by the US of any person in the world if he is involved in doping during competitions with American participation.
"This law is in conflict with the Anti-Doping Code. I imagine that one of the steps WADA will take at this stage is to refer this particular matter to the Compliance Review Committee. I suspect that if or when there are hearings on this matter, they will declare the US non-compliant. That would mean they wouldn't be able to host the Olympics,'' Pound said.
On April 20, the newspaper "New York Times" reported that 23 Chinese swimmers who competed in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics tested positive for "trimetazidine". WADA later said it did not punish the athletes before the Games in the Japanese capital because it could not refute reports that the ingestion of a banned substance was unintentional. The head of USADA accused the World Anti-Doping Agency and the Chinese Anti-Doping Agency of deliberately covering up the positive results of doping tests, and the US Congress requested documents from USADA in the case of the Chinese swimmers.
The 2028 Summer Olympics will be held in Los Angeles. The 2034 Winter Games site is due to be confirmed in July, with only Salt Lake City showing interest.