WADA's latest issue means athletes accused of doping violations could have gone unnoticed during the Paris Olympics

Oct. 2, 2024, 1:24 p.m.

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In the lead-up to the Paris Olympics, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) reportedly lost track of over 900 potential doping results, with at least 2,000 cases possibly impacted by flawed, missing, or erroneous data in the organization’s database, according to a report by the New York Times.

Despite top WADA officials being alerted to these issues back in May, the situation has been shrouded in secrecy, remaining hidden even from the agency’s executive board members until NYT reporters uncovered photographic evidence of the presentation presented at a meeting.

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The presentation urged immediate action after WADA’s legal team discovered the data problems and found themselves unable to confirm whether staff were adequately monitoring cases involving athletes potentially bound for the Olympics.

While WADA has consistently encountered challenges with its computer systems since its inception, the situation has become more severe in the lead-up to the Paris Games. According to two officials and the PowerPoint presentation, a new internal database has been causing escalating issues, impacting an increasing number of cases.

Over 900 test results showing banned substances failed to appear in WADA’s database, which is used to track cases. An additional 1,700 cases had incomplete information, missing critical codes that link them to specific athletes’ samples. Furthermore, 750 cases lacked sufficient details to identify the athletes involved.

WADA downplays the situation

WADA has since acknowledged the meeting but downplayed the situation, describing it as a discussion about “temporary technical issues” due to a data migration. The organization maintained that the so-called “missing” results were the result of these technical challenges and asserted that the problems had “no negative impact whatsoever” on the upcoming Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, pointing out that multiple databases were used to track cases.

However, a former anti-doping official with knowledge of the matter informed the New York Times that the database issues remained unresolved at the start of the Games. This disclosure adds to the scrutiny WADA faces, particularly after it was revealed that 23 Chinese swimmers participated in the Tokyo Olympics despite failing anti-doping tests.

Advertisement The gravity of the situation extends beyond technical failures, with WADA’s lawyers warning in May that the agency risked violating its own rules.