Leading Chinese swimmers, including several crowned Olympic champions in Tokyo in the summer of 2021, tested positive in early 2021 and were not sanctioned, German public television ARD and the New York Times.
Three months before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games (JO) in Paris (from July 26 to August 11), Chinese swimming, already splashed in the past by several doping cases, once again finds itself at the center of revelations.
An investigation carried out by the “doping editorial team” of the ARD, which had already revealed the Russian doping scandal at the end of 2014, and by the American daily explains that twenty-three of the best Chinese swimmers tested positive for trimetazidine, at the start of 2021, during a competition in Shijiazhuang (China).
This substance, banned since 2014 on the grounds that it improves blood circulation, was found in analyzes carried out at the end of 2021 on Russian skater Kamila Valieva, suspended for four years from December 25, 2021.
Of the 23 Chinese people who tested positive at the start of 2021, 13 participated in the Tokyo Olympics a few weeks later, or almost half of the Chinese delegation in Japan. Three of them came home with gold: Zhang Yufei (200m butterfly and 4 x 200m freestyle), Wang Shun (200m medley), and Yang Junxuan (4 x 200m freestyle).
An investigation was carried out by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, then a report was written by the Chinese Anti-Doping Agency (Chinada) and submitted in March 2021, concluding that there was food contamination. No provisional suspension was imposed between the positive controls and the submission of the report.
Not possible to refute contamination
In a statement released on Saturday, WADA provided explanations on how it proceeded. Due to restrictions at the time linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, its investigators were unable to visit the site.
Independent experts were, however, consulted to test the contamination hypothesis put forward by Chinada. WADA concluded that it “was unable to refute the possibility of contamination as the source of trimetazidine.”
Consequently, no negligence or fault was held against the athletes. WADA therefore considered that an appeal was not justified.
In 2022, the International Testing Agency (ITA) raised questions regarding misreporting of trimetazidine samples. “This was independently reviewed by WADA’s Investigation and Intelligence Department, which concluded that appropriate procedures were followed and that there was no evidence of wrongdoing,” WADA said. .
This affair gave rise to a skirmish via press releases between the head of the American anti-doping agency (USADA) Travis Tygart and WADA. Tygart accused WADA and Chinada of having “so far swept these positive cases under the rug,” citing “glaring failures.”
“Politically motivated” accusations to “weaken the work of WADA”, reacted the Montreal-based agency, recalling that it had accepted in the past similar conclusions from USADA for cases of contamination of American athletes .
For Tygart, trimetazidine does not fall into the category of doping products which can come from contamination. He also recalls that in previous proven cases of contamination, USADA “had provisionally suspended the athletes, found a violation of anti-doping rules and published a press release”, which was not done for the Chinese swimmers.
In the past, several doping scandals have affected Chinese swimming. In 1998, Yuan Yuan was banned after Australian customs discovered large quantities of growth hormone in her luggage during the World Championships in Perth.
Swimming star, three-time Olympic champion and eleven-time world champion Sun Yang has been suspended since February 2020 for four years and three months after destroying with a hammer a sample of his blood taken during an unannounced doping control at his home in September 2018.