The CEO of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) Travis T. Tygart has been caught lying to the world about a scheme that allowed U.S. athletes who had committed doping violations to compete without sanctions for years, said China Global Television Network (CGTN) reporter Liu Xin in a commentary released on Thursday.
The commentary goes as follows:
The Olympics are on in Paris, but there's no truce in sight.
The latest squabble between the World Anti-Doping Agency, the recognized global authority on the job known as WADA, and the U.S. national authority on anti-doping called USADA, is getting nastier. And my observation is: The head of USADA, Mr. Tygart, has shamelessly lied to the world.
Here is the story.
Reuters dropped a bombshell on August 7, reporting on a so far undisclosed dispute between WADA and USADA. It involves U.S. athletes caught doping by USADA but still allowed to compete in exchange for ratting on others. It's like the FBI cutting a deal with the mafia.
In reaction to the story, WADA sent out a statement, giving its version and more details. "WADA is now aware of at least three cases where athletes who had committed serious anti-doping rule violations were allowed to continue to compete for years while they acted as undercover agents for USADA, without it notifying WADA and without there being any provision allowing such a practice under the Code of WADA or USADA's own rules."
The athletes were caught doping between 2011 to 2014, according to WADA. But the world body was only informed of these violations ten years later in 2021. In at least one case, USADA has done so without ever publishing or sanctioning the violations. The athlete was even allowed to compete until retirement.
In fact, WADA says, the case was "never published, results never disqualified, prize money never returned, and no suspension ever served." Never, ever! WADA did not sign off on this practice.
Now, what's USADA's version? In a latest statement, its CEO Travis Tygart, who is known to have pursued Lance Armstrong's doping case, did not contest the facts provided by WADA. He insists, instead, it was a smear and a deflection attempt by WADA.
Tygart asserts that at least one of the informant's cooperation was necessary for U.S. authorities' investigation into human and drug trafficking. He says: "WADA was notified of the violations and sanctions."
Now this is crucial -- USADA admitting there were violations. Because, despite the murky details, one thing becomes crystal clear. Tygart has lied.
In this news article published by AP on June the 20th this year, when commenting on the exoneration of a U.S. athlete for the Paris Games after testing positive earlier this year, Tygart was quoted as saying:
"We did what the rules require us to do in all positive cases...We can take comfort that justice was served, and transparency, as required by the rules, was achieved."
The report went on to say, "USADA insisted it has followed the rule book in all of those cases, including making public any violation, even if it did not result in a penalty."
Tygart was referring to food contamination cases, which are unavoidable, unintended, and can be tolerated. But here we are talking about real drug cheats. It's a different story and much more serious offenses.
Talk about transparency, Mr. USADA, where was it before 2021? You knew there were serious violations, but you kept schtum. Explain yourself.
USADA CEO caught red-handed lying about athletes undercover tactics: commentary
USADA CEO caught red-handed lying about athletes undercover tactics: commentary
USADA CEO caught red-handed lying about athletes undercover tactics: commentary
