US anti-doping agency who brought justice upon Lance Armstrong admits to use of doping rule violators as undercover agents

The global and U.S. anti-doping agencies are at odds over undercover tactics used by the American body to try to catch drug cheats. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) suggests that the U.S. agency USADA broke the global code by letting several athletes it had caught between 2011 and 2014 violating drug rules go undercover and keep on competing without prosecution in exchange for information on other violators.

USADA tells Reuters that the tactic is necessary and allowed, and wants to keep using it. On the contrary, WADA reports it is against its code and that athletes caught breaking doping rules should not get to line up in races, potentially winning prize money and medals, without first being publicly prosecuted and sanctioned.

"WADA is now aware of at least three cases where athletes who had committed serious anti-doping rule violations were allowed to continue to compete for years while they acted as undercover agents for USADA, without it notifying WADA and without there being any provision allowing such a practice under the (global) code or USADA's own rules," WADA said in a statement to Reuters.

The global agency said the three athletes have since retired but declined to name them, citing security concerns in case they faced retaliation. It issued the statement after Reuters asked if it was aware of the practice, having seen speculation about it by sports fans on social media.

The U.S. agency has defended letting drug rule violators compete so they could act as undercover informants, saying in one case such assistance had provided intelligence to a U.S. federal law enforcement investigation into a human and drug trafficking scheme. "It's an effective way to get at these bigger, systemic problems," USADA Chief Executive Travis Tygart told Reuters. The agency declined to provide specifics about the incident in which the reliance on USADA's informant had helped U.S. authorities.

Despite varying reactions on social media, Tygart, who is known for driving his agency's prosecution of U.S. cyclist Lance Armstrong, believes using violating athletes to expose more senior ones, as well as gather intelligence on organised criminals involved in sports doping and trafficking is the right thing to do.