The people in charge of the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City have 10 years to figure out how to assure thousands of athletes and millions of sports fans that the competition will be clean.
They’re not off to a very good start.
After 20 years of planning, organizing and fundraising, the Salt Lake City Olympic Organizing Committee came to the July 24 International Olympic Committee meeting as the only candidate on the ballot for the 2034 Winter Games. It was in the bag.
But then the time came for the Salt Lake committee to use its powerful bargaining position, to stand up for an Olympics that everyone could trust, or to capitulate to a system that has brought great shame upon the whole Olympic movement. Our folks, under considerable duress, made the wrong choice.
Fraser Bullock, chair of the local organizing committee, joined Utah Gov. Spencer Cox in promising the IOC that their loyalty belongs to the IOC and its friends at the ethically suspect World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and not to U.S. law. In order to seal the deal, they signed an addendum telling the IOC that if Salt Lake and U.S. organizers don’t do enough to push back against congressional efforts to make the Games fair, the IOC can take the Games somewhere else.
But there is nowhere else.
There was, and is, no other credible candidate. Putting on a Winter Olympics is expensive, complex and, with climate change accelerating, possible in an ever-smaller number of locales. The IOC also had only one serious applicant for the 2030 Winter Games, the French Alps.
But the IOC was adamant. Its position is that WADA, and only WADA, has the authority to investigate possible violations of anti-doping rules and to decide what, if any, disqualifications or other sanctions are deserved. It resents a 2020 act of Congress that gives the U.S. Department of Justice authority to investigate allegations of cheating in international competitions where Americans are involved.
Congress has presented a bipartisan resolve to press its case in the wake of allegations that WADA botched its investigation of 23 Chinese Olympic swimmers — including three gold medal winners — who tested positive for a banned substance during the Tokyo Summer Games of 2021.
Chinese officials said the positive tests, for a drug that is intended to treat heart problems, were caused by kitchen contamination. WADA, and only WADA, bought that explanation and closed the case, in secret, penalizing no one.
There is some merit in the IOC argument that a single agency, not a patchwork of conflicting national rules, should police international sport. But if there is only one cop on the beat, that officer must be incorruptible.
WADA does seem to be feeling pressure from U.S. officials and athletes, including eight-time swimming gold medalist Katie Ledecky, who have demanded more transparency. Tuesday the agency announced it was reviewing several cases where positive drug tests were explained away as food contamination.
WADA is apparently responding to criticism from Congress and from athletes. Not to pressure from Utah or the USOC because, unless it is happening behind the scenes, there hasn’t been any.
In influencing the Utah governor, the IOC may have seen that it had two effective pressure points: Cox’s history of giving in to bullies, moving as he has from an inclusive leadership style to full membership in MAGA Nation. And his desire to be seen disrespecting federal authority.
If WADA has indeed started to clean up its own behavior, Utah should seize the moment and use its considerable leverage to demand an anti-doping regime, for 2034 and beyond, that the world can trust.