WADA loses track of cases amid data problems

The N.Y. TIMES reported in a front-page piece on Saturday that lawyers for WADA in late May told top officials at the organization that a “series of problems with its databases had led to corrupted, missing or incorrect data related to at least 2,000 cases." As a result, the agency had “even lost track of more than 900 test results from athletes who had been accused of breaking antidoping rules." Because of the data problems, the agency can “no longer determine which cases it should be monitoring," and its lawyers were "unsure if its staff was properly tracking cases of athletes" who might have been heading to the Paris Games. The meeting raised “serious new questions about the performance of the agency," which has come under “intense scrutiny this year for its handling of possible doping in swimming.” WADA confirmed the meeting in May about the problems with “missing” data, but they “played down the significance of the problem and the degree of alarm inside the agency” (N.Y. TIMES, 9/27).