WADA överklagar friandet av Jannik Sinner i clostebolfallet

WADA lost track of open cases before Paris Olympics

By Gretelle Jimenez

Saturday, 28 September 2024

Just weeks before the Paris Olympics, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) lost track of more than 900 suspected doping results and at least 2,000 cases may have been affected by corrupted, missing or incorrect data due to issues in the organisation’s database, the New York Times reported Friday.

Top WADA officials were informed of the issues in May, yet the crisis has remained a closely guarded secret and has been kept even from members of the agency’s executive board until reporters from the NYT obtained photographic evidence of the presentation used at the meeting.

The presentation called for urgent action after lawyers for the organisation became aware of the data issues and were unable to determine if its staff was properly tracking cases of athletes who might soon be heading to the Olympics.

WADA has had regular issues with its computer systems since its creation, but has become increasingly dire leading up to the Paris Games as staff realised issues arising from a new internal database were affecting more and more cases, according to the two officials and the PowerPoint.

More than 900 testing results that showed the presence of a banned substance were not showing up in the agency database used to monitor cases, 1,700 cases had partial information and were missing codes linking them to samples submitted by individual athletes. Another 750 did not have enough information to connect them to a particular athlete at all.

WADA has since confirmed the meeting took place but highlighted that it was “to discuss some temporary technical issues” and that problems with the “missing” were simply “technical challenges” that came with a data migration. The organisation also stresses that the issues had “no negative impact whatsoever on the Paris 2024 Olympic or Paralympic Games,” and that it relied on several other databases to track the cases.

However, a former anti-doping official briefed on the issue told the NYT that the database issues remained unresolved when the Games began. This recent disclosure puts the organisation under even deeper scrutiny, with its credibility already under fire after it was revealed that WADA had allowed 23 Chinese swimmers to compete in the Tokyo Olympics even after failing anti-doping tests.

The seriousness of the situation may go far beyond the IT fiasco as it risked being in serious violation of its own rules, its lawyers warned in May.

“WADA’s significant responsibility and important role as the world’s leading anti-doping authority is of utmost importance and must not be undermined by a lack of action and transparency,” said Linda Helleland, a former vice president of the agency.

WADA refutes New York Times Paris 2024 doping data claims

By Daniel Soriano

Saturday, 28 September 2024

According to a statement disclosed by the agency, the allegations made by the newspaper are based on “leaked information from an internal meeting,” during which the technical issues about the process were discussed. However, WADA insists that this “in no way negatively impacted the Paris Games.”

In a bombshell revelation, the renowned Big Apple newspaper revealed an article stating that “tense meeting in May, senior officials at the agency were warned that a computer glitch could allow athletes accused of doping to compete at the Paris Games.” Just hours later, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) issued a strongly worded statement categorically denying these allegations.

The WADA took note of the article published on Friday in the New York Times that claimed that anti-doping data relating to athletes competing at the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games “may not have been adequately reviewed by the WADA prior to the Games”.

In the notice, WADA testified that it had provided the facts to the New York Times, while the article contains “allegations which are simply incorrect”. According to the anti-doping regulatory body, the article is based on information leaked to an “internal WADA technical meeting held in May 2024” between the Agency’s Legal and IT departments, concerning the migration of data from an older Results Management System (known as LRM) to a new system (known as RMC). The May meeting was held to discuss difficulties with the migration and issues the Legal Department had navigating the RMC and finding data within it.

The organisation directed by Polish Former Minister of Sport and Tourism of Poland, Witold Banka, also stated that “contrary to the claims in the American journal, the technical challenges faced in this data migration had no adverse impact on the Paris 2024 Olympic or Paralympic Games.” Full data was available at all times, and all data relating to athletes competing in Paris was “adequately reviewed by WADA.”Regarding the data update, the agency assures that it remained “up-to-date and was housed in both the old system, LRM, and the Anti-Doping Administration and Management System (ADAMS)”. For the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, WADA confirmed having used a combination of RMC, LRM, and ADAMS, all data for athletes on the shortlist for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. All of them being “reviewed”. “Both LRM and RMC are internal systems designed to support Legal’s Results Management work: the data held in those systems is derived from ADAMS and also includes all information received from Results Management Authorities by Legal”, explained in the release.As with the situation regarding the New York Times report on Chinese swimming cases, WADA points to the newspaper having chosen to be “misled by sources with questionable motives as part of a campaign to defame WADA.”