Chairman of the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) Gene Sykes called for an end to the acrimony between the two bodies on Wednesday, encouraging them to bring their years of “playing ping pong with media bullets” to a conclusion.

Having awarded the 2034 Winter Games to Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Sykes warned the decision could be reversed stating that the IOC “have an escape clause if the United States somehow undermines the world anti-doping code.”

USADA has been an outspoken critic of WADA for some years but tensions reached new levels in the wake of the doping scandal which saw 23 Chinese swimmers cleared after initially testing positive for Trimetazidine (TMZ) in 2021.

The former published a 16-page document outlining its “deep concern” while USADA CEO Travis Tygart spearheaded the feud accusing WADA of “half-truths” and rebuking the agency for covering up the cases.

The World Anti-Doping Agency then hit back at the “very serious allegations” threatening legal action, a move Tygart deemed “threats and scare tactics”.

Back in 2021, with China blaming the failed drug tests on unintentional food contamination, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) expressed its “full confidence” in WADA and refrained from sanctioning the Chinese athletes, some of whom went on to win medals at the Tokyo Games.

When it was announced in April that 11 of the 23 cleared Chinese swimmers would be competing at the upcoming Paris Olympics tensions flared further and on Wednesday the International Olympic Committee (IOC) stressed its ability to strip the USA of its newly awarded 2034 Winter Olympics if the media melee didn’t subside.

“What we want to do is to cool the tempers and find a way for these organisations to constructively work better together,” USOPC Chairman Gene Sykes told a press conference in Paris

“As soon as one side comes out with a statement, the other side comes out with a statement,” Sykes said. “They have not been shy about throwing rocks at each other.”

In a separate press conference, WADA president Witold Banka was faced with the suggestion that he had made too strongly worded criticisms of USADA and Tygart which he defended saying that they had been made “in a very calm way.”

When asked whether he would be prepared to settle his differences with Tygart and USADA, Banka initially told the conference they are “always very open for collaboration” but emphasised the difficulty amid the current high tensions.

“But of course, in the current situation, after all these defamatory comments, allegations, really I have to say, statements which are totally against the principle of collaboration, it’s a very difficult situation and the relations are tough,” he said.

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