Eleven swimmers involved in alleged doping scandal named to Chinese swim team – Firstpost

Beijing: China will send 11 swimmers involved in a major doping scandal to the Paris Olympics next month, after the country named its squad for the Games. Twenty-three Chinese swimmers tested positive for the heart drug trimetazidine (TMZ) – which can improve performance – ahead of the pandemic-delayed Tokyo 2021 Games, it was reported in April.

They were not sanctioned after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accepted the Chinese authorities’ argument that the positive tests were due to food contamination. Several swimmers won medals, including gold, in Tokyo a few months later.

China unveiled its swimming team for Paris on Tuesday. Among them were 11 of the 23 named in April news reports that broke the story of the massive positive tests.

The team includes butterfly specialist Zhang Yufei, who won two gold medals in Japan, as well as another gold medalist, Wang Shun.

Qin Haiyang, multiple breaststroke world champion and 200m record holder, is also named in the reports and will travel to Paris.

In April, the New York Times and the German channel ARD reported that 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for TMZ during a national competition in late 2020 and early 2021.

Chinese anti-doping authorities determined that they had unintentionally ingested the substance from contaminated food at their hotel and no action against them was warranted. WADA’s decision not to punish the swimmers and allow them to continue competing drew sharp criticism, including from the United States.

The manner in which the affair was revealed, through the media rather than official channels, also sparked some anger. The head of the US National Anti-Doping Agency, Travis Tygart, called the matter a “potential cover-up”, an allegation that WADA and China have strongly denied.

WADA said it would send a compliance audit team to China to “assess the current state of the country’s anti-doping program”, an investigation in which China said it would cooperate.

This month, The New York Times reported that Qin, Wang and another swimmer had also tested positive for another banned substance in separate cases several years earlier. The Times said all three men tested positive for clenbuterol in 2016 and 2017.

Chinese authorities argued that they had inadvertently ingested the substance via contaminated meat and no disciplinary action was taken.

The AMA said all three products had levels of clenbuterol that were between “six and 50 times lower” than the minimum reporting level currently used by the agency.

In a statement to AFP, China’s anti-doping body responded this week, calling the Times’ latest article a violation of “media ethics and morality.” Alongside powerhouses America and Australia, China hopes to be among the swimming medallists when the Paris Olympics begin on July 26.

However, Chinese swimmers will be subject to increased and intense surveillance.

Speaking on the eve of the US Olympic trials, which began on Saturday, 100m breaststroke world record holder Lilly King called the most recent revelations about Chinese swimmers “disappointing and frustrating”.

“You know, when we put everything on the line … everything we do to compete on a level playing field, it’s extremely frustrating to not believe that other people are doing the same thing,” she said.

Australian swimming head coach Rohan Taylor has urged his team to focus on themselves. “We need to be sure that WADA and (governing body) World Aquatics will continue to investigate and that we are in favor of a clean sport,” he said.