Weight loss drugs could be banned from 2028 Olympic Games

Fears that the Los Angeles Games could be remembered as the “Ozempic Olympics” have gathered pace as an increasing number of athletes, particularly in endurance sports, have shown patterns of alarmingly rapid weight loss.

The potential for the abuse of drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy, from the class of GLP-1 medications, has been monitored by Wada since 2024. 

Olivier Rabin, Wada’s senior director of science and medicine, told The Observer that when “other substances have been on the monitoring programme in the past, they move from being monitored to being prohibited. It’s because we have seen use that is well beyond therapeutic reasons.”

Following the success of an extremely lean Pauline Ferrand-Prévot in this year’s women’s Tour de France, rival Marlen Reusser, who is also a doctor, was among those to express concerns. “Ferrand-Prévot has set a new standard. When riders are so successful with this, it puts pressure on all of us,” Reusser said.

Fellow professional Cédrine Kerbaol was also critical and said that the obsession with weight management had pushed cycling into a “dangerous moment”.

According to Rabin, Wada would usually expect to collect evidence through its monitoring programme for another year.

“If in 2026 and 2027 we collect information that shows that GLP-1 agonist semaglutides [a medication in some weight loss drugs] are being abused in sport, they could be banned before the Los Angeles Olympics,” Rabin said.

“The monitoring programme allows us to look at those substances in urine samples and see if we detect patterns of abuse.

“In the past, to lose weight, you needed to be under calorie restriction and you really needed to starve. The big change with GLP-1 is that you can eat normally and you're going to lose weight, so that’s a big change.”

Rabin cited the examples of products that had been detected as being used by entire teams for reasons that were clearly not therapeutic.

“That’s typically the abuse of a substance,” he said. “For now we don’t have that information with GLP-1 products, but we are collecting the information so we will see.”

But the growing use of GLP-1 drugs is also thought to be fuelling other abuses.

“Now there is a drug that is a combination of GLP-1 and myostatin inhibitor [a drug that helps retain muscle], to prevent the loss of muscle mass,” Rabin said. “We heard that athletes, to prevent the loss of muscle mass, are also using anabolic steroids.”

With the Enhanced Games scheduled for May next year and Wada now under attack over its alleged treatment of whistleblowers, the organisation is also fighting fire on other fronts.

The agency is pushing back on claims that it is 'hunting whistleblowers” after German media reported that an internal investigation, Operation Puncture, was seeking to expose those who had passed on information in the controversial case of the 23 Chinese swimmers who returned positive doping tests ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, which has fuelled an ongoing spat between Wada and Usada, the American anti-doping agency.

Wada president Witold Bańka hit back at suggestions that the anti-doping body had been part of a cover-up of the Chinese swimming positives. “Superpowers are not happy with us, but it's the best evidence that we are independent,” he said.

Banka saved his harshest words for Travis Tygart, chief executive of Usada, accusing him of “politicising” the Chinese affair. The American has been a serial critic of Wada’s handling of the case.

“The US is one of the greatest sporting nations with fantastic athletes,” he said. “But they deserve to have a strong robust anti-doping system. My dream is that instead of politicising, attacking us, they really strengthen anti-doping in the US.

”In the Chinese swimmers’ case, when the story erupted, we were told that we covered up things, that we were corrupted and that maybe even I had directly covered it up. This is a politicisation.

“Maybe you can disagree with the decision taken by Wada, but the technical decision was used in the USA against Wada to destroy the image and paint us as people who were corrupted. There is nothing, zero evidence, that anything was wrong on Wada's side.”

But Tygart was dismissive in his response to Bańka’s criticisms, telling The Observer that, in his view, “China got away with sweeping 23 positive tests under the carpet in clear violation of the rules”.

“This most likely impacted 96 medals from the 2021 and 2024 Olympic Games,” Tygart said. “We’ve asked for answers and accountability. How could Wada let this happen? And he claims we are politicising? Laughable.”

Gunter Younger, Wada’s director of intelligence and investigations, also denied the suggestion that the agency had mistreated whistleblowers.

“We would never do anything that would endanger a whistleblower,” Younger said. “In the last nine years, none of our whistleblowers have been disclosed. We absolutely reject the suggestion that we are ‘hunting’ a whistleblower.”

Younger, who was a pivotal figure in the far-reaching Operation Aderlass investigation that led to the conviction of Mark Schmidt, the German doping doctor, was unable to confirm the status of the International Testing Agency (ITA) inquiry into allegations of Schmidt’s connection to Ineos Grenadiers staff member, David Rozman.

Rozman was withdrawn from duties for the British team during this year’s Tour de France after the ITA launched an investigation into alleged messages he exchanged in 2012 with Schmidt.

Younger declined to confirm if the Rozman investigation was ongoing. “We asked the ITA to check and to assess and we are working with them to see what can be done, but it’s their investigation.”

Photography by Jeff Haynes/AFP/Getty Images