The president and vice president of the World Anti-Doping Agency were reelected to unprecedented third terms Thursday in a move the agency’s critics say undercuts its promise to make meaningful governance reforms after years of doping scandals.
The third terms for president Witold Banka of Poland and vice president Yang Yang of China will run through the end of 2028 and extend their time in office to nine years.
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, in a social media post, called it the “ultimate ‘bait and switch’, first promising governance reforms following the Russian anti-doping scandal and then quietly changing the rules the second the world looked away.”
WADA spokesman James Fitzgerald outlined the rules changes made in 2023, which did away with the tradition of having a president represent either sports organizations or governments, each of which represent 50% of WADA’s main policy-making board. When Banka was first elected, he was a government candidate, but is now considered an independent candidate.
“This change … was done in order to accommodate the introduction of an initial cooling-off period and the formal election process for those positions,” Fitzgerald said. “It was also done to harmonize the nine-year term limit with other members of the WADA Foundation Board and Executive Committee.”
Banka said he was “deeply honored” to be tabbed for a third term.
“Despite the many challenges we have faced over the past five-and-a-half years, it has also been a period of transformation, of resilience, and of undeniable progress,” he said.
Though the Russian doping scandal began before Banka took office, WADA was under his control during the more recent case involving 23 Chinese swimmers who were not banned after WADA declined to step in on a contamination case handled by that country’s anti-doping agency.
The U.S. government is withholding its annual payment of more than $3.6 million to WADA. When that decision was announced, the U.S. drug czar at the time, Rahul Gupta, said “WADA must take concrete actions to restore trust in the world antidoping system and provide athletes the full confidence they deserve.”
USADA portrayed Banka’s re-election process as the latest in a long-running series of moves that have undercut WADA’s credibility.
The German media outlet ARD reported that Dutch Olympic triathlete Chiel Warners had wanted to get in the race, but the obstacles to getting on the ballot — which included getting two nomination forms signed by different members of the WADA Foundation Board — were too great.
“The fact that you need letters of support to run for an independent office does not seem particularly democratic,” Warners told ARD. ”Especially since it is not at all clear how you are supposed to obtain this support. In practice, this means that candidates can be excluded from the outset — and that is exactly what has happened here.”
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