{"id":15124,"date":"2025-11-09T10:40:30","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T10:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/infundpros.com\/?p=15124"},"modified":"2025-11-09T10:40:30","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T10:40:30","slug":"anti-doping-chiefs-clash-over-pro-steroid-sports-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/infundpros.com\/?p=15124","title":{"rendered":"Anti-doping chiefs clash over pro-steroid sports competition"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description o3-type-body-base\"><span>Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=5f5726b1-fd4e-4c6a-8c32-3ba885209057\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>The heads of the US and global anti-doping bodies have traded barbs in an escalating war of words over the pro-steroid Enhanced Games, which are backed by Donald Trump Jr and due to be held in the US next year. <\/p>\n<p>The two sides have been at loggerheads since it emerged last year \u2014 to US outrage \u2014 that the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) had allowed Chinese swimmers to compete in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics despite positive drug tests. <\/p>\n<p>Wada chief Witold Ba\u0144ka stepped up the tension this week, telling the Financial Times the Enhanced Games, which encourage athletes to use performance-enhancing drugs in order to break records, should be prevented and could be \u201cembarrassing\u201d for the US as an organiser of big sports events.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe would like the Americans to return to the anti-doping family,\u201d Ba\u0144ka said in an interview, noting that the US is due to host the football World Cup next year and the Olympics in 2028.<\/p>\n<p>In response to Ba\u0144ka\u2019s comments, US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) chief Travis Tygart did not condemn the Enhanced Games but told the FT they \u201chave nothing to do with our athletes, the\u00a0World Cup, or the Olympics\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>In 2023, Tygart had called the event a \u201cdangerous clown show\u201d, but Ba\u0144ka said USADA had been silent since the Games gained powerful investors, including Trump Jr and tech billionaire Peter Thiel. At the time of Tygart\u2019s initial criticism, \u201cthere was nothing clear about who was going to finance\u201d the event, Ba\u0144ka said.<\/p>\n<p>Tygart accused Ba\u0144ka of trying to \u201csmear\u201d the US and of using the Enhanced Games as \u201ca telling smoke screen\u201d for allegedly failing to stop doping in the 2020 and 2024 Olympics. \u201cCertain athletes with positive tests were allowed to compete, win, and in a way, have their own Enhanced Games,\u201d Tygart said.<\/p>\n<p>Chinese authorities told Wada the 23 swimmers who tested positive for a banned heart medication during the Tokyo Olympics did so because of inadvertent contamination from a hotel kitchen. Due to pandemic travel restrictions, Wada was unable to conduct its own probe on the ground. <\/p>\n<figure id=\"wcuqyxwx\" class=\"n-content-image n-content-image--full\" data-component=\"image-set\"><picture><source media=\"(min-width: 700px)\"  width=\"2288\" height=\"1526\"><\/source><source media=\"(max-width: 490px)\"  width=\"1526\" height=\"1526\"><\/source><\/picture><figcaption class=\"n-content-picture__caption o3-editorial-typography-caption\"><span>Wada chief Witold Ba\u0144ka says the US anti-doping body should try to stop the inaugural Enhanced Games next May<\/span><span> <!-- -->\u00a9 Fabrice Coffrini\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>When the issue came to light last year, USADA also criticised Wada for not making the test results public at the time. Instead, it was revealed in investigations by the New York Times and German TV channel ARD shortly before last year\u2019s Paris Olympics. <\/p>\n<p>An investigation by a Swiss prosecutor found last summer that Wada had not shown bias towards the Chinese swimmers. Still, then-President Joe Biden\u2019s administration withheld US funding for Wada over the scandal. Wada has since launched an investigation into how data about the swimmers was leaked. <\/p>\n<p>The inaugural Enhanced Games are set to be held in Las Vegas next May, with competitions in swimming, track and field, and weightlifting. <\/p>\n<p>But Ba\u0144ka said USADA should explore \u201clegal possibilities\u201d to stop the games and \u201cdo a lot to convince Congress people and others who invest money in this event that this is dangerous\u201d. He declined to directly criticise US President Donald Trump\u2019s son.<\/p>\n<p>Ba\u0144ka, a former 400-metre runner and Polish sports minister, also criticised USADA for an alleged drop-off in testing since the Paris Olympics. It conducted 7,500 tests in 2023, he said, but only 308 in the six months after the Olympics.<\/p>\n<p>Wada\u2019s president also accused the US of failing to shut down enough doping laboratories. \u201cWe have had many cases in Europe [of lab closures] but in the US, where we know from law enforcement that it is the biggest market of illegal steroids in the world, I haven\u2019t heard anything about US activity,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>In response, Tygart said that Ba\u0144ka\u2019s \u201cattempt to smear America and our US Olympic and professional athletes is a desperate attempt to divert attention away from his failure in allowing China to sweep 23 positive tests under the carpet\u201d. <\/p>\n<p><em>Additional reporting by Josh Noble<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Read the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/5f5726b1-fd4e-4c6a-8c32-3ba885209057\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The heads&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15124","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Anti-doping chiefs clash over pro-steroid sports competition | inFundPros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The heads of the US and global\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/infundpros.com\/?p=15124\" \/>\n<meta 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