American swimming legends Michael Phelps and Allison Schmitt put the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on blast and urged Congress to implement change to the organization with “deeply rooted systemic problems.”
Phelps and Schmitt testified at a United States Congressional hearing before the House Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation on Tuesday in Washington, describing the lengths they went to in order to compete fairly while putting WADA under fire for its lack of transparency, among other things.
Both Phelps and Schmitt took aim at WADA over its handling of the Chinese doping scandal that broke in April, when it was revealed that 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine in early 2021 and yet were allowed to compete at the Tokyo Olympic Games—and the positive tests were never reported by WADA.
Less than two weeks ago, it was reported that three Chinese swimmers tested positive for another banned substance, clenbuterol, in 2016 and 2017, and two of them went on to become Olympic champions in Tokyo.
“We need to hold them responsible,” Phelps said of WADA, noting that its handling of the Chinese case showed any reform made to the agency to implement positive change have missed the mark.
“It is clear to me that any attempts of reform at WADA have fallen short, and there are still deeply rooted systemic problems that prove detrimental to the integrity of international sports and athletes’ right to fair competition, time and time again,” Phelps said.
“I urge Congress to use its considerable leverage with WADA to make the organization independent and effective. It can’t reasonably be a coincidence that WADA has yet again succumbed to the pressures of international sport to do the expedient at the expense of the athlete.”
The 38-year-old Phelps said that “close friends” were potentially impacted by the decision to allow swimmers who tested positive to compete in Tokyo.
“As athletes, our faith can no longer be blindly placed in the World Anti-Doping Agency, an organization that continuously proves that it is either incapable or unwilling to enforce its policies consistently around the world.”
Schmitt, 34, was a member of the American women’s 800 free relay in Tokyo that won silver behind the world record-setting Chinese team that included two swimmers who tested positive.
“We raced hard. We followed every protocol and accepted our defeat with grace. Three years later, news surfaced that some Chinese athletes on that team were not subjected to the same anti-doping rules, casting doubt on the fairness of the competition. With these revelations, many of us will be haunted by this podium finish that may have been impacted by doping,” Schmitt said.
“I plead, on behalf of US athletes: hold WADA and the global anti-doping system accountable. If we win, let it be because we earned it. And if we lose, let it be because the competition was fair. We need the International Olympic Committee, NBC, sponsors, and fans to demand integrity in our sport.”
A 10-time Olympic medalist and four-time U.S. Olympian, Schmitt also spoke to the negative effect the doubt surrounding WADA’s credibility has had on the current crop of American swimmers heading to Paris to compete next month after she was in attendance at the Olympic Trials in Indianapolis.
“As recently as last week at the US Swimming Olympic Trials, I witnessed the frustration and disappointment of young athletes whose confidence in the anti-doping system has been shattered,” she said. “They deserve better. They deserve a level playing field where success is determined by talent, hard work and dedication – not by banned substances.”
Phelps gets very, very loud when the topic of doping comes up. He points fingers very, very easily. I vividly remember him pointing a finger at Efimova, who was actually proven to be innocent in 2016 regarding meldonium. A much better stance for him to take was the truth: Meldonium was legal up until 2016, and doctors indicated that it can stay in the body for quite a long time relative to testing. He should’ve apologized when she was proven innocent. Instead, he fanned the flames.
It’s always made me wonder if he was on an exemption list, or perhaps part of the 2014 scandal, and this is his way of overcompensating. To be sure, he was a truly… Read more »
Lance Armstrong once was considered the greatest cyclist in tour de France history.
can’t wait for china to be beaten this olympics. especially Zhang, Qin and Wang
imma be honest no one is beating Qin at 200 breast maybe marchand if he swims it, he damn well might sweep 100breast because the US is very weak rn and so are many other countries breastroke wise,. he’ll likely go 57.3 and no one else will likely break 57
fallon will
Qin was injured this year, and he has been nowhere near his wr in the 200 since he did it. Even the Asia games where he equalled his 100 time he added more than 2 seconds
Peaty went 57.9 the same time went 58.5 this year. If he was injured it doesn’t make sense he would drop time in either
As expected it’s all the former athletes standing up. None of the administrators including those at World Aquatics do anything. They are beholden to China.
Now let’s see some political protests on the podium in Paris please!
Swimming needs a good kick in the butt. Exposing the Chinese as cheaters at the biggest sporting event might be a good start.
Have Phelps’ medical exemptions ever leaked?
Not that I have seen.
I caught up on the Kensey McMahon stuff a few days ago… my question really is how does one come about a medicine so obscure without any sort of digital footprint of sketchy things like this happening? In this day and age that would almost be impossible. I’m not inclined to either believer her or not believe her, but based on the description of how little of it would have to be in your system to test positive, I have to also wonder if there is a market for purposefully sabotaging your competitors with substances like this. I’ve been reading a lot of fiction recently but it certainly doesn’t seem too hard to imagine with how toxic the rest of… Read more »
Just say you’ve never taken a urinalysis before. The specimen container is sealed right there in front of you.
All it would take is slipping a pinch into her water bottle. Not saying it’s likely at all in this case but possible nonetheless
While I pure not wrong, in Kensey’s case there would have been way easier drugs to contaminate her with. This one wasn’t commercially available in the U.S. at the time.
Nobody is actually talking about the test itself 😂 can’t believe I needed to have specified that
If you were going to sabotage someone, don’t you think you would pick someone that actually had a realistic chance of making the team?
How do you know there isn’t a digital footprint? WADA assumes guilt based on the positive. The only additional evidence they’re given is from the accused (or other witnesses where relevant). WADA don’t have the power to check if McMahon did look up anything sketchy online or order something sketchy.
This conversation is aside from McMahon. Although I certainly feel like she was at least capable of finaling at trials. The point is there are plenty of illicit drugs on the market that could probably be used in the manner I’ve described. People accidentally take Fentanyl all the time and I’m sure almost every time it’s not on purpose. Obviously someone would have to despise you as a person or be incredibly jealous while also being outright evil for this scenario to be realistic.
This is like watching an episode of Real Housewives.
Phelps should have borrowed Lochte’s grill for this occasion.
We are the worst cheaters…. US athletes claim all kind of health and mental Issues to be able to take performance enhancing substances otherwise not allowed by WADA. . Half of the team had ADHD so they claim exemptions… look which countries have the most exemptions filed. None of those drugs are allowed and are listed as banned performance enhancing substances. if they did not claim ADHD… really please stop pointing fingers at others and look deep on your own team.
Evidence that any of this is true?
Plenty… not just swimmers, athletes from all sports. It makes you wonder why so many of these top athletes have asthma, ADHD, etc etc.
There were a bunch of TUEs leaked a few years back. It seemed like a lot of USA athletes had medical exemptions.
Stfu I’m sorry we seem to be ahead on mental health progress and destigmatization in society
Who claimed ADHD?
Please attach the evidence for your statement. I’ll wait.
WADA president’s response: https://www.wada-ama.org/en/news/statement-wada-president-politicization-anti-doping-united-states
I found this part about the number of tests carried out by US compared to other countries quite interesting:
… Read more »That’s actually unacceptable that American athletes average 2 out of comp tests a year
It makes it even more egregious when people miss 3 tests in 12 months … they barely get tested as it is!
And it makes it even more suspicious when you have athletes who rarely compete during the season – eg Athing Mu has only run the 800m at 3 events in the past 20 months – 2023 worlds, 2023 DL final (which she had to get a wildcard to compete in because she didn’t qualify having not raced in any DL events) and the 2024 Olympic trials
Pretty sure the number includes in-competition tests.
You really believe WADA test stats in countries like China and Russia? Also from what I’ve read elite US athletes are tested as often as elite athletes from other countries or even more often. For ex Ledecky was tested 20 times in 2022.
It doesn’t really matter what China and Russia do. The numbers show USADA tests waaaay less than most Western countries which is obviously a massive concern. Unless you’re suggesting that all countries except USA lie about testing?
Why does USADA do so few tests compared to other countries? That seems massively suspicious right? Surely if it was revealed that China did way fewer tests than average that would be discussed, right?
Okay. This seems to be another discussion. Turning back to this article, why were Chinese swimmers allowed to swim after testing positive for PEDs? Is there more to that story?
The case of Chinese swimmers is almost the same as Erriyon Knighton, food contamination.
The Chinese explanation is looking less convincing with each passing day and wasn’t particularly convincing to begin with.
https://swimswam.com/michael-phelps-allison-schmitt-slam-wada-at-u-s-congressional-hearing/#comment-1414332
What a surprise!
Just doubt what WADA exists for. Chinese mass positive, it’s fine. US less samples than other counties, it’s fine. Where is the standard? Requirement of the number of samples? If everything is in each country’s discretion, what is WADA doing? Looks that it’s just very fast in retaliation.
WADA’s response: “hey, look over there!”
Thoses 23 positive results were caught by CHINADA after testing athletes twice or thrice over a very short period of time. CHINADA definately does a lot of tests.
The results fluctuated between positive and negative within a few hours in some cases.
It’s surprising they even reported the results to WADA at all.
However, it looks like the chinese athletes didn’t know about the positive results. The rationale may have been to not distabilize the athletes mentally after a contamination kerkuffle. Could lead to paranoia among the athletes.
How’s life in Fantasyland?
Pretty good actually
President Banka seems a bit defensive.