Olympic athletes representing the Russian Olympic Committee stand on the medals podium during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games on July 29, 2021 in Chiba, Japan. (Rob Carr/Getty Images)

The Olympic Games bring the world together for exciting, honest competition where top athletes presumably play by the rules—that is, unless participating nations choose corruption over fair competition. As the pandemic disrupted training routines in the lead-up to the Tokyo Summer Olympics, athletes reduced their anti-doping drug testing by 45% in 2020 and 20% in 2021. With the games in full swing, what does the reduced enforcement of anti-doping testing mean for athletes, spectators, and competing nations?

U.S. Anti-Doping Agency Chief Executive Travis Tygard joined Paul Massaro on the Making a Killing podcast to discuss the prevalence of corruption in international sports and the powerful new U.S. law that is bringing greater accountability to the Olympic Games. Named after the whistleblower who exposed Russia’s widescale state-sponsored doping program during the 2014 Sochi Olympics, the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act criminalizes doping fraud by non-athletes in international competitions that involve American athletes. See below for more from Tygard.

Be sure to read Husain Haqqani's top-read article in Foreign Affairs, "Pakistan’s Pyrrhic Victory in Afghanistan," and join us next week for an interview with Rep. Elaine Luria and a discussion on U.S. military joint mission integration.

Weekend Reads is taking off the next two weeks—we'll see you August 21!

Key Quotes

Key quotes from Travis Tygart, chief executive of the U.S. Antidoping Agency:

1. Audiences Are Cheated When Governments Support Doping

Tygart: When it comes to the Olympic Games, [the U.S.] supports it financially more than any other country in the world. NBC paid billions of dollars to the Olympic Games in 2014 in Sochi. And Russia wins the most medals in those Games. But after the fact, when [Russia’s state-sponsored doping program] gets exposed, Russia drops to fourth on the medal list because they lost so many medals from cheating.

Sports fans got robbed. The investment that NBC made in those games, they didn't get what they were promised. They were promised real competition that was honest, that was played by the rules. And that's why it's valuable. We all hate to lose, but what we hate more than losing is losing to someone that cheats us.

Finally we are willing to recognize that doping ought to be treated like fraud from a criminal enforcement standpoint. And it's why we were so supportive of the Rodchenkov Act, and we're thrilled to play a role in helping enforce it for these major competitions being held around the world.

2. The Pandemic's Impact on Anti-Doping Testing

Tygart: I worry about the lack of testing during 2020 due to the pandemic around the globe. It was down, according to World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) statistics, about 45% [in 2020]. 

We've called for transparency on the testing numbers. Let's see who's been tested going into the games. We post on our website to lead by example. For example, when Katie Ledecky wins a gold medal in a swimming event, you can see how many times she's been tested in the past several years. Lily King or Emma Coburn on the track, you can go and see it. Unfortunately, WADA doesn't do that. [But it could] add a level of transparency and accountability and go a long way in ensuring that the games are as clean as they possibly can be.

3. Russia's State-Led Sports Doping

Tygart: [Russia’s Sochi Olympics doping operation] fell under the Russian sports minister's office. This is a concept that many in the U.S. don't fully appreciate, that the U.S. may be the only country that doesn't have a Minister of Sport. These are cabinet-level positions that interact with the executive branch, or Russia’s case, directly with Putin. [Russia’s sport minister] had all the finances he needed to use sport to further propagate Russia’s national interests. What did they do? Well, they dope their own athletes. They covered up their positive tests. They knowingly sent cheating athletes despite being a member state of the UNESCO International Convention Against Doping in Sport.

Despite these private sport rules known as the WADA Code, [Russia] turned a blind eye to all of those commitments, and knowingly paid for and orchestrated a deep-seated cheating scheme to send Russian athletes to games around the world in order to win and exert their national power on the global stage. [And at WADA,] you have countries sitting around the table who were also friendly with Russia, and don't want to take hard action against Russia.

Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.

Go Deeper