World Aquatics appears to be making good on its vow to drug test Chinese swimmers more frequently leading up to the Paris Olympics next week.
During the Chinese Olympic swimming squad’s first 10 days in Paris, its roster of 31 athletes has already been drug tested almost 200 times in total, according to a since-deleted social media post on Weibo by team nutritionist Yu Liang. If those numbers are indeed accurate, that comes out to about six tests per swimmer.
“We came [for the tests] at six in the morning and during the lunch break — we had nowhere to take a rest but a sofa in the hotel lobby,” Yu wrote. “We came again at 9 p.m., and had to stay up until the middle of the night.”
Eleven Chinese Olympic swimmers in Paris were implicated in a 2021 doping controversy involving 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine (TMZ). They were never punished after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) declined to dispute China’s assertion that they unwittingly ingested the heart medication due to contamination in their hotel kitchen.
World Aquatics said last week that Chinese Olympic swimmers will be tested by the International Testing Agency “no less than eight times” from Jan. 1, 2024 until the start of the Paris Olympics.
Both World Aquatics and a Swiss prosecutor reviewed the 2021 Chinese doping controversy and determined earlier this month that WADA handled the case according to protocol. However, the U.S. federal investigation into the scandal remains ongoing and criticism has continued with Michael Phelps and Allison Schmitt testifying at a recent Congressional hearing. In May, seven-time Olympic champion Katie Ledecky said her faith in the anti-doping system “is at an all-time low.”
Last month, the New York Times reported that Wang Shun, Yang Junxuan, and Qin Haiyang tested positive for another banned substance in 2016 and 2017, but their levels of clenbuterol were between six and 50 times below the minimum reporting level. Wang, Yang, and Qin also tested positive for TMZ in January of 2021 along with Zhang Yufei, about seven months before the Summer Games in Tokyo. Wang, Yang, and Zhang went on to win Olympic gold medals in Tokyo while Qin broke the world record in the 200 breast last year.
When reports first surfaced in April surrounding the 2021 Chinese doping controversy, China denied any fault and called the allegations of doping “fake news.”
The damage is done who cares
They’re lucky to be in Paris and should have zero complaints about testing at any time of the day.
There is no controversy other than what some people had made up in their minds and that some media, including swimswam, are exploiting for clicks and visits that, obviously, translate into money—looking forward to the Olympics.
there is no controversy? are you forgetting about the 20+ athletes that tested positive? this is necessary, as no one trusts them.
You know when testing is most critical? During training. Mass testing shortly before competition isn’t what matters. The whole point of PED’s is to allow for more intense training and better recovery after that intense training.
The damage is done. Nothing short of actually banning those 23 athletes matters.
Yeah too bad banning people without actual evidence of d*ping is not on WADA’s agenda. Suing those who have been spreading all the propaganda to smear Chinese athletes will be. It’s ridiculous that people like you claim to implicate Chinese swimmers based on results that Chinada reported, and then claim in the same breath Chinada isn’t to be trusted. It makes no sense
23 positive tests.
Chinada made up an excuse of kitchen contaminate that doesn’t hold water. At least 1 athlete mentioned they were never notified (a requirement). Another athlete wasn’t even at that location during the supposed training excuse.
But sure… no evidence.
The way it works is after the positive test, the agency has to notify the athletes. And the athletes have to prove the contamination. The positive test IS THE PROOF.
This was handled completely backwards. It was a coverup from the start.
There’s absolutely no evidence of a cover up, and honestly I’d like to see you present some real evidence instead of just claims which satisfy your preconceived biases. WADA has laid out the timeline of events extremely clearly, maybe you should actually read it. Let’s just be genuine here, if USADA truly believed this was a cover up, why didn’t they say anything till literally 3 months before the 2024 Olympics? They knew about this since 2021, they could have tried to actually do something substantial. Like actually providing some evidence? But its clear this is nothing more than smears and political attacks.