{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.curtis.senate.gov/press-releases/curtis-pushes-for-accountability-from-world-anti-doping-agency-ahead-of-2034-salt-lake-games", "CURTIS PUSHES FOR ACCOUNTABILITY FROM WORLD ANTI-DOPING AGENCY AHEAD OF 2034 SALT LAKE GAMES", "2025-06-17", "2025", "2025-06", "Republican", "Senate", "UT", "John R. Curtis", "C001114", "www.curtis.senate.gov", "curtis", "https://www.curtis.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases", "scraper", "A transcript of the exchange can be found below, and the video file can be downloaded here.\n\nSenator Curtis: Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to our witnesses. Mr. Tygart, as you know, Utah hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics. I think by everybody\u2019s standards, it was a tremendous success, both for the state and for the Olympics. Today, imagine our pride in hosting the 2034 games!\n\nAnd to us, building on that legacy that we had in 2002 is just really important. And to be honest, if you ask the average person on the street in Utah about WADA or USADA they wouldn\u2019t know, right, what was going on. But they do know this. They want the Olympics in 2034 to be the cleanest Olympics in the history of Olympics.\n\nSo, what has to happen? What does WADA, can they restore trust? And to restore trust specifically, not in generalities, what do they need to do?\n\nMr. Travis Tygart: Listen, I think the silver bullet to restoring trust is independence. They promised an independent president and vice president. They broke, betrayed that promise. And that was part of why the U.S., back in 2020, agreed to fund WADA was making it more independent.\n\nThat was in the legislative language to the funding that U.S. taxpayers agreed to send to WADA. And that was supposed to go into effect, but they changed the rules mid-game. A bait and switch is what happened.\n\nI do firmly believe if you put an independent president and vice president on the executive committee, which then also means it\u2019s on the foundation board, they\u2019re the same people, then we can begin the process of ensuring that it\u2019s trustworthy, that it\u2019s transparent, has accountability, and change the culture so it\u2019s not a service or lapdog to sport, but is actually a dedicated, faithful servant to clean athletes.\n\nCurtis: Great. Thank you. Katie, thank you for being here today. There are not many people that have done what you did, and there are not many people who could come here today and fill the role that you\u2019re filling.\n\nI think, in many ways, there are a lot of people both in Congress and professionally, who are working on getting this fixed, but you represent the athletes. So, what do we need to do so that the next person that stands on that pool deck feels like, \u2018You know what? This is going to be fair.\u2019\n\nMs. Katie McLaughlin: Thank you for your question.\n\nI don\u2019t have the specific ground rules of a plan of what I think should be done, but I think just echoing what Travis has said of independence and finding a way to find a way for the athletes to be able to trust WADA is super important. And I think that\u2019s pretty much it.\n\nCurtis: Okay, good. Well said. Doctor Gupta, we talked about transparency. In your legal opinion. right, in your professional opinion, how does that happen? And is there possible legal action under Rodchenkov anti-doping legislation do we need to do?\n\nDr. Rahul Gupta: Thank you, Senator. And really appreciate the work of this Committee, actually, on this issue. It\u2019s really critical.\n\nI do echo my colleague\u2019s thoughts here about the true independence. I also think having the independent code compliance audit is important. I think having make sure there\u2019s no conflicts of interest in the leadership of WADA is important. I think independent athletes\u2019 representation is important. I think strengthening our oversight of it and having that representation.\n\nWhat I found is if we\u2019re not at the seat, we can\u2019t impact change. And what about the most independent? And you\u2019ve heard Katie talk about what U.S. athletes do, and we want to make sure that everybody\u2019s doing it first of all. But more importantly, we want to make sure that cheaters are not part of that system. And then, of course, engaging our corporate stakeholders, and leveraging much more diplomatic channels.\n\nSo, I think all of those things, we cannot give up our authority under the Rodchenkov Act to go after the entourage of bad actors. And that\u2019s where the supreme authority language kind of doesn\u2019t work for the United States when these games are coming to you and U.S. and we are so proud of those as well.\n\nCurtis: Let me ask this. Athletes are going to get more and more innovative in cheating. What resources do we need to bring to the table to deal with that?\n\nGupta: I think we do. Congress has to think about more resources in terms of supporting USADA\u2019s work, because I do think that more R&D and more work will be required in the future because we have a decade, a golden decade, in the United States, where we will have so much more sports, but also, ensuring that, you know, I withheld the funding because we weren\u2019t getting results.\n\nSo, we have to be more accountable ourselves as well as expect accountability out of WADA.\n\nCurtis: Good. Ms. Koller, I have just a few seconds left. Would you like to weigh in on any of the questions that I\u2019ve asked?\n\nMs. Dionne Koller: No, Senator, I think it\u2019s been well covered. Thank you.\n\nCurtis: Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield.\n\nAdditional Reading:", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:34:38Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.curtis.senate.gov/press-releases/curtis-pushes-for-accountability-from-world-anti-doping-agency-ahead-of-2034-salt-lake-games"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8375539910048246, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}