Wagner, who was beaten on the world stage by swimmers that were later proven to have used banned performance-enhancing drugs, has been appointed as director for athlete and international relations at the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and is determined to fight against doping in sport.

USADA says Wagner will oversee its athlete engagement efforts, work to ensure "effective relationships with key international partners" and "advocate for anti-doping excellence on a global scale".

The Atlanta 1996 silver medallist was a research associate at the Sports Equity Lab at Yale University and graduated from the Erasmus Mundus Program.

Wagner was one of six Olympians selected by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to go on the two-year programme.

She developed expertise in international relations and sport governance, as well as anti-doping policy and athletes’ rights.

The 43-year-old believes her academic research taught her that organisations including WADA have a “long way to go” to improve transparency when it comes to anti-doping.

"We at USADA and clean athletes would love more transparency and to have tests made more public," Wagner told insidethegames.

"It’s interesting that over the past two years I have been studying all sorts of federations and sports organisations and I can see there is a long way to go with regards to transparency in almost every respect.

"There have been improvements, but I think that WADA needs to be more transparent about a lot of its processes, decisions and positions.

"I think it would be great to know who has been tested.

"That would help clean athletes."

Wagner also expressed concerns over the year-long delay of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics due to the COVID-19 pandemic, claiming the time in lockdown may have provided some athletes with the chance to cheat.

"My concerns would mirror every clean athlete, which is that there was a period of time when the world was shut down,” said Wagner.

"How do clean athletes know those athletes who do want to compete unfairly are really monitored well and that was controlled as best as possible?

"It is impossible to say that there wasn’t more opportunity for some athletes to potentially cheat so that is the biggest concern.

"I think that athletes in the US have been concerned and we at USADA have got our testing numbers back up to where they need to be, so it’s great that we can provide athletes with that information, and they can be comforted by that."

Wagner’s career highlights included winning gold in the 200-metre individual medley at the 1993 Short Course World Championships with a world record time of 2 mins 7.79 secs.

At 18, Wagner claimed silver at the Atlanta 1996 Olympics behind Ireland’s Michelle Smith.

Smith, who won three golds in Atlanta, was hit with a four-year ban in 1998 for tampering with her urine sample using alcohol.

She was never stripped of any of her Olympic medals.

At the 1994 World Championships, Wagner won silver in the 200m individual medley behind Chinese swimmer Lü Bin.

Bin tested positive a few weeks later.

"It was really frustrating to be a part of a system that wasn’t working to protect me as a clean athlete so that had an impact on my life in and out of sport," said Wagner, who suffered eating disorders before calling time on her career in 2000.

"I think there have been improvements in the world of anti-doping in the past 25 years in terms of protocols and the resources dedicated to the area.

"There is still a lot the burden that athletes bear in the anti-doping process so all sporting organisations need to focus on the clean athletes' needs in competing fairly."

Wagner said she felt "inspired" to provide support for clean athletes after the revelation of the Russian doping scandal.

"I was at that time and still am very concerned about that situation in so many ways," said Wagner.

"My heart goes out to all of the clean athletes that were impacted by that scandal.

"That’s why I gave up my former professional life, moved to Europe, did this degree and am now working at USADA.

"That is something that has such a tremendous ripple effect and quite frankly really negatively impacted a lot of lives.

"I think something that all leadership and sports governance need to know is that it is not just a race on a day or an Olympic competition.

"For athletes, it is a big part of their lives and how their experience in sport plays out affects the rest of their life.

"The concern for clean athletes really needs to be taken very seriously."