China is sending 11 swimmers concerned in a doping scandal to the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Among the many 31-member swimming roster launched on Tuesday, the Chinese language Swimming Federation named almost a dozen swimmers who examined constructive for the banned coronary heart drug trimetazidine in 2021.
Though these exams have been performed three years in the past, the outcomes didn’t come to mild till this yr, which sparked worldwide outrage in each China and the World Anti-Doping Company. The World Anti-Doping Company stated it accepted China’s rationalization that the 23 swimmers who failed the exams by chance ate meals contaminated with the substance often called TMZ, which was discovered at “extraordinarily low ranges.”
The World Anti-Doping Company privately cleared the swimmers of any wrongdoing and allowed them to compete at Tokyo 2021 – the place two of them gained Olympic gold medals.
Eleven of these 23 have been chosen on Tuesday to be a part of the Chinese language group that can compete within the Video games subsequent month.
They embody Zhang Yufei, gold medalist within the ladies’s 200m butterfly and 200m freestyle relay, and Wang Xun, gold medalist within the males’s 200m particular person medley.
Chinese language officers have strongly denied the doping accusations, calling them “false,” “deceptive” and “defamatory.”
The continuing saga may forged a shadow over the Paris 2024 swimming occasions, with critics accusing the World Anti-Doping Company of double requirements. The doping company’s acquittal of the Chinese language swimmers comes after it suspended Russian determine skater Kamila Valeeva, who additionally claimed she was contaminated with TMZ forward of the 2022 Beijing Winter Video games.
When the constructive Chinese language take a look at outcomes emerged, USADA CEO Travis Tygart described the information as “overwhelming.” He stated that the world and Chinese language anti-doping federations “till now secretly swept these positives beneath the rug.”
Gold medal-winning American swimmer Katie Ledecky He said in May Confidence within the anti-doping system was at an “all-time low” earlier than Paris. Subsequent week, two different American swimming greats, Michael Phelps and Allison Schmidt, are scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill at a Home Vitality and Commerce Subcommittee listening to on anti-doping measures.
Committee chairs Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Washington, and R-Virginia, stated the World Anti-Doping Company “has a questionable file.” In a joint assertion. They added: “This listening to will give members a chance to look at this file, and be sure that the very best athletes are those who get the gold medals.”
The testing physique launched an unbiased assessment of its dealing with of the case, though it did so solely after the story leaked to the New York Occasions. It additionally despatched a group to China to judge its anti-doping programme.
For its half, the Chinese language Anti-Doping Company (Xinada) accused the US Anti-Doping Company and the New York Occasions of constructing “false accusations and deceptive and defamatory experiences.”
Chinada informed TMZ her officers discovered traces within the kitchen of the lodge within the metropolis of Shijiazhuang, the place athletes have been staying for a nationwide swimming meet at which swimmers examined constructive. The readings have been attributable to “an remoted mass incident ensuing from the athletes’ unaware consumption of meals contaminated with TMZ” and no “fault or negligence” was discovered on the a part of any of the contributors.
In the meantime, the World Anti-Doping Company issued a number of sharp rebukes, echoing China by calling the protection “deceptive and probably defamatory.” “The contamination situation was believable, and there was no concrete scientific factor to problem it,” she stated in an announcement in April.
The World Anti-Doping Company confirmed final week Story in the New York Times Three of the 23 Chinese language athletes additionally examined constructive for clenbuterol, a special performance-enhancing drug, between 2016 and 2017.
In line with The Occasions, the three athletes are among the many members of the Chinese language group in Paris, though the World Anti-Doping Company has not confirmed their names.
The Anti-Doping Company stated hint quantities of the drug “have been ingested by meat contamination” and described the Occasions story as “sensationalist and inaccurate”.
