US holding $2.93 million, still seeking reforms from WADA

The U.S. government is holding on to nearly $3 million earmarked for the World Anti-Doping Agency, with plans to pay only if it sees “real progress and a path for more substantial future reforms” out of the global drug-fighting organization. The U.S. has complained that it isn’t well represented in the agency — though it has picked up spots on some advisory panels, it has no seat on the 14-member executive committee that shapes most policies — and has been critical of WADA’s handling of the Russian doping scandal that upended international sports since before the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Last summer, Congress received its first report from the White House drug-control office, which suggested the U.S. did not get its money’s worth from what it gives to WADA each year. whether it best serves sport for WADA to have embedded within its critically important international doping regulator a de facto voting majority by the very industry being regulated,” the report said. The government also asked for more truly independent athletes in important roles — WADA is working on changes, but some athletes are still appointed to committees by the IOC or their own countries’ national Olympic organizations — and for WADA to push for reforms at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which has the ultimate say on most doping cases.