WADA drops lawsuit against USADA but still believes it would have won

The World Anti-Doping Agency has dropped a lawsuit and an ethics case it filed against critics in the United States who disagreed with its handling of a doping case involving Chinese swimmers.

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency said Thursday that a defamation lawsuit filed in Swiss court against the American drug-fighting agency along with an ethics complaint against former U.S. drug czar Rahul Gupta had both been withdrawn.

USADA CEO Travis Tygart called the end of the legal actions “complete vindication for us both.”

The news was first reported by the website Honest Sport, which obtained a letter sent from WADA leadership to its executive committee.

“While we remain convinced that the lawsuit would be successful on its merits, we have determined that it is futile to argue with somebody who is unwilling to accept clear evidence, whose only goal is to damage WADA and the global anti-doping system,” the letter said in the latest of a long string of accusations flying between Tygart and WADA’s leaders.

The core of the latest disagreement between them came over WADA’s handling of the case involving Chinese swimmers who tested positive, but received no sanction after the country’s anti-doping agency determined the positives were the result of contamination.

WADA commissioned what it said was an independent investigation that found the agency acted “reasonably,” but critics say the investigation by a lawyer chosen by the agency was flawed.

WADA also dropped the ethics complaint it had filed last summer against Gupta, who was on the agency’s excecutive committee.

In an email to the New York Times, Gupta said the dropped claims “clearly demonstrate the meritless and politically motivated claims that WADA leaders attempted to pursue against the United States.”

All these disagreements led the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, led by Gupta during the Biden Administration, to refuse to pay its $3.6 million in annual dues to WADA.

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AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games