NEW YORK – The United States Anti-Doping Agency (Usada) criticised the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) which confirmed reports on April 20 that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive for a banned drug before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Wada had accepted China’s findings that this was due to substance contamination.
Multiple media reports said the swimmers tested positive for trimetazidine, which is found in heart medication, months before the pandemic-delayed Games began in July 2021.
Chinada, China’s anti-doping agency, called the reports “misleading” and said the results had been inadvertent.
It said the swimmers had tested positive for “extremely low concentration” of trimetazidine after inadvertently being exposed to the substance through contamination and should not be held responsible for the positive results, according to a statement reported by China’s state news agency Xinhua on April 21.
Chinada said it had investigated the matter “from various respects” and kept Wada and World Aquatics informed.
“Wada agreed with our conclusion after thorough review,” Chinada said.
China’s 30-member swimming team won six medals at the 2020 Olympics, including three golds. Double Tokyo gold medallist Zhang Yufei is among several Chinese swimmers who are set to contend at Paris 2024.
Without mitigating circumstances, athletes who fail doping tests are usually subject to bans of two to four years for a first offence and life for a second.
Global anti-doping body Wada, which has the authority to appeal the rulings of national doping agencies, said it reviewed the decision and consulted scientific experts and external legal counsel to test the contamination theory presented by Chinada.
“Wada ultimately concluded that it was not in a position to disprove the possibility that contamination was the source of trimetazidine and it was compatible with the analytical data in the file,” it said in a statement.
“Wada also concluded that... the athletes would be held to have no fault or negligence. As such, and based on the advice of external counsel, Wada considered an appeal was not warranted.”
World Aquatics, the sport’s global body, said it was confident the positive tests were handled “diligently and professionally”.
But Usada criticised Wada and Chinada for their handling of the matter.
“It’s crushing to see that 23 Chinese swimmers had positive tests for a potent performance-enhancing drug on the eve of the 2021 Olympic Games,” Usada chief executive officer Travis Tygart said in a statement.
“It’s even more devastating to learn the World Anti-Doping Agency and the Chinese anti-doping agency secretly, until now, swept these positives under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.
“All of those with dirty hands in burying positive tests and suppressing the voices of courageous whistleblowers must be held accountable to the fullest extent of the rules and law.”
Wada said it was considering legal action against Usada and Tygart for accusing it of a cover-up.
“The World Anti-Doping Agency is astonished by the outrageous, completely false and defamatory remarks made by the CEO of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, Travis Tygart, who has made very serious accusations,” Wada said in a statement.
“It is implicit in his statement that Mr Tygart does not accept the finding of environmental contamination in this case, although he cannot say why.”
Wada said that in the past it had accepted Usada’s similar conclusions of contamination involving a number of US athletes.
Chinese swimming has a chequered doping history, with a rash of cases throughout the 1990s. Seven Chinese swimmers tested positive for steroids at the 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima.
In 1998, swimmer Yuan Yuan was banned after Australian customs officers discovered a large stash of human growth hormone in her bags at the world championships in Perth.
More recently, three-time Olympic champion Sun Yang was banned for doping, ruling him out of the Tokyo Games. REUTERS, AFP, NYTIMES
