WADA official urges US sports leagues to adhere to its code

Citing unity as key for the concerted fight against doping, the World Anti-Doping Agency, or WADA, has praised strong partnerships with stakeholders in Asia and Oceania, while urging the United States to strengthen its domestic doping-control efforts and stay in line with international rules.

With the 2027 World Anti-Doping Code and International Standards set to be implemented in half a year, WADA highlighted the importance of a well-informed and well-connected global anti-doping community with a focus on collaboration and harmonization as it called on governments, national anti-doping authorities, and relevant parties across the Asia and Oceania region to improve, adjust, and update their own doping-control systems to keep up with the new code.

WADA President Witold Banka, while addressing participants at the 2026 Regional Symposium for Asia and Oceania in Beijing on Tuesday, accentuated at the meeting the important role each signatory must play in the global implementation of the new code and standards, where key information, such as incoming changes to the 2027 code, improvements made to the standards for laboratories, and optimization of anti-doping collaboration were communicated and discussed.

While highlighting the critical need for worldwide coordination to uphold clean sport, Banka zeroed in on longstanding loopholes within the US domestic anti-doping framework and brought up the fact that some privately-owned professional sports leagues and the US collegiate sports system remain outside the global doping-control regulations overseen by WADA.

"There are private leagues, for instance, from the US, which are not a code signatory. They have their own programs, which are quite weak when it comes to doping, and there is the NCAA – the academic sport (governing body) – and this is not a mystery that they are not code signatories either," Banka said from the sideline of the symposium on Tuesday afternoon.

The WADA president stressed that the onus falls squarely on the US Anti-Doping Agency, or USADA, to bridge this regulatory gap and integrate these fragmented domestic systems into the unified global anti-doping network.

"So, that's more of a question for the US Anti-Doping Agency. What have they done to encourage them and to convince these private leagues and the academic sport to be code signatories?" asked Banka, who used to represent Poland in the 400 meters. "I think it should be a mission of USADA to convince all the stakeholders (in the US) to be the part of the system. And they are not part of the system now."

Banka emphasized WADA's years-long advocacy for the USADA to prioritize rectifying its domestic regulatory loopholes, rather than shifting focus to other countries' anti-doping practices.

"Through many years, we encourage our colleagues from USADA to focus more on their backyard, rather than focusing on other countries, and I'm not sure whether they took the point," Banka said.

The two-day regional symposium, hosted at the China National Convention Center in Beijing's Olympic Park, has brought together anti-doping officials, sports governing bodies, and government representatives from across Asia and Oceania, to align regional preparations for the landmark 2027 code enforcement, which sets strengthened global benchmarks for doping prevention, testing, sanctions, and compliance.

sunxiaochen@chinadaily.com.cn