AAs the swimming events take place at the La Defense Arena in Nanterre, questions about doping among Olympic athletes, especially from China, continue.
On July 30, the New York Times reported that two Chinese swimmers, one of whom is competing at the Paris Olympics, tested positive for an anabolic steroid, a banned performance-enhancing substance, in 2022, but were allowed to continue competing without sanctions after Chinese anti-doping authorities cleaned them.
It’s just the latest revelation of apparent doping violations that the global athletic community is beginning to question. A few months after the 2024 World Swimming Championships, a Times investigation revealed that 23 Chinese swimmers at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics tested positive for a banned substance, trimetazidine (TMZ), at a training camp months before the Olympics. Chinese anti-doping authorities determined that the positive results resulted from contamination of the food the swimmers ate and did not sanction or suspend any of the athletes. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which oversees clean sport at major international events such as the World Championships and Olympics, agreed with the Chinese group and the athletes were allowed to compete in Tokyo.
In June, the Times reported that in previous years, three of these athletes tested positive for another banned substance, clenbuterol, which has steroid-like effects in increasing muscle.
The incidents have raised questions from the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and US lawmakers about WADA’s effectiveness in establishing and enforcing rules on clean sport. In June, WADA he responded for the Times investigation, calling its conclusions “sensationalistic and inaccurate” and characterizing US calls for action as “highly charged and politically motivated criticism.” The agency went on to cite examples of cases of food contamination in other countries. In turn, in a Press conference In Beijing in April, an official from China’s anti-doping agency said the allegations were “fake news and not factual” and said in a statement published on Times which determined that no doping violations had been committed by its athletes and therefore could not respond to any allegations without the athletes’ permission.
In July, the White House and USADA asked WADA to provide a more detailed account of the circumstances behind the positive tests and how the agency reached the decision that the tests were the result of contamination.
These are just the latest moves in a long back-and-forth between WADA and clean athletes to ensure athletes are competing on a level playing field. Many athletes believe the agency does not have the impact it should in detecting and punishing those who use performance-enhancing drugs. Even if every athlete and every substance is not caught, stricter sanctions and immediate suspensions while investigations take place could go a long way toward discouraging doping, they say. Due to WADA’s decision not to punish or suspend any of the 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive in Tokyo, nearly a dozen are scheduled to race in Paris.
See more information: More than a third of China’s swimming roster at the Paris Olympics linked to doping scandal
When asked about the uncertainty surrounding Chinese swimmers, 11-time Olympic medalist Katie Ledecky said in Paris before the competition began: “I hope everyone here is competing clean this week. This really matters. It also matters [if they] they were training clean. Everyone has heard what athletes think. They want transparency. They want answers to questions that still remain. We are here to race and we will race with whoever is on the track next to us. Therefore, we expect people to follow their own rules – which apply now and in the future. We want to see some changes in the future so you don’t have to ask us that question.”
On June 25, swimming legend Michael Phelps and four-time Olympic champion Allison Schmitt testified before Congress to ask for government sanctions against WADA, as the US is the anti-doping agency’s largest government supporter (about half of the agency’s funding comes from the International Olympic Committee and half from various governments). “It is clear to me that any attempts at reform at WADA have been insufficient and there remain deep-rooted systemic problems that prove detrimental to the integrity of international sports and the right of athletes to fair competition, time and time again,” Phelps said. .
Travis Tygart, president of USADA, noted that China’s contributions to WADA have increased, prompting Senator Kathy Castor (D-Florida) to ask during the hearing: “Did the PRC payment influence your decision-making?”
On a declaration Responding to the hearing, WADA suggested that USADA was trying to “distract attention from its own failures” and get the US government to divert funding from WADA to USADA. WADA criticized the hearing as “full of the kind of emotional and political rhetoric that makes headlines but actually does nothing constructive to strengthen the global anti-doping system.” The organization denounced the “politicization” of anti-doping and said it was “being drawn into a much broader struggle between two superpowers. As an independent and largely technical organization, WADA has no mandate to be part of these political debates.”
The main prohibited substance in question, trimetazidine, is a cardiac angina medication that works by improving blood flow to the heart and increases the body’s ability to use oxygen, which can increase endurance. It is used outside the US, but not approved in the US. The drug last made doping headlines during the 2022 Beijing Olympics, when Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva tested positive for the drug and Russian authorities allowed her to compete after concluding that she unknowingly ingested some medications. grandfather’s, also in case of contamination. An independent Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) concluded that Valieva’s positive sample, collected at a competition before the Olympics, should have disqualified her from the Beijing Games. Her scores were eliminated from the women’s figure skating event as well as the team event, where her removal led Team USA to gold. On July 24th, the CAS rejected an appeal filed by the Russian Olympic Committee and the US team is expected to receive its gold medal in Paris, in a special ceremony on August 7th.
The other performance enhancer said to have been found in samples from the three swimmers in the years leading up to the Tokyo Olympics is clenbuterol, a prescription asthma medication to open the airways – but not in the USA (where it is only approved for horses). On a declaration published on the agency’s website on June 14, WADA said it was aware of the use of clenbuterol in agriculture and the “widespread problem” of “positive samples[s] of an athlete who consumes meat from animals treated in this way.” WADA maintained that the values found in the athletes’ samples were six to 50 times lower than current minimum anti-doping levels.
In the largest case, involving 23 swimmers from the country, both WADA and the international swimming federation World Aquatics agreed that the samples were contaminated. Oliver Rabin, WADA’s senior director of science and medicine, said in a statement: “We concluded that there was no concrete basis to dispute the alleged contamination.”
Tygart said the U.S. is turning to legal action to compel greater accountability from WADA, including taking advantage of a law that provides extra-territorial jurisdiction to enforce WADA rules, even outside the U.S. and outside of U.S. players. “Congress and the President at the time felt it was necessary as a means of protecting clean sports and the investments made in those sports by the US and US companies,” he says.
Other organizations, including the International Testing Agency, which was created as an independent testing group in 2016 after another Russian doping scandal, are also helping to raise questions about doping violations that are not sanctioned. In Paris, the ITA reported a positive steroid test from an Iraqi judoka, which led to his suspension from the Olympics.
But it is clear that existing rules are being followed and applied haphazardly, with some countries taking them more seriously than others. Tygart said USADA followed the rules and made difficult decisions to strip medals from high-profile athletes, including Lance Armstrong and Marion Jones, who tested positive for banned substances. “It’s a difficult decision, but it’s what the job demands,” he says. “We at USADA have not changed, but WADA has definitely changed. I think if WADA is good at their job, they are worried that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) might withdraw funding from them, but because if they become too good at their job, in cases that potentially have a negative impact on a sport If the depth of the cheating was exposed, the IOC would be upset and no longer fund them.”
The solution, he says, is “we have to stop the foxes from guarding the henhouse,” noting that many leaders of sports regulatory bodies also hold positions at WADA. “At USADA, no one who sits on our board can also serve in any capacity within a sports organization,” says Tygart. “The current WADA system is a structure primed to fail.”
With the opening of the Paris Games, the issue was in the spotlight as the IOC added a change to the award of the 2034 Winter Olympics to Salt Lake City. The move gave the IOC the right to move the Olympic Games to another location if the US did not demonstrate full support for the WADA system – likely related to the US’s recent call for a full accounting of the agency’s actions surrounding the Chinese cases. .
The integrity of the system is at stake and, for now, it is not based on agencies created to monitor clean sport, but on whistleblowers who present evidence of irregularities. “People want WADA to be effective, to do the job they are paid to do, and clean athletes expect that,” says Tygart. “Unfortunately, that was not the case.”
“We are following all the rules,” Ledecky said. “All we ask is that these rules be applied fairly and consistently to everyone.”
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
