Doping: China is under particular scrutiny in swimming

Is that still a coincidence? When the first swimmers jump into the pool of the specially converted La Défense rugby arena in the Paris suburb of Nanterre this Saturday, the preliminary heats for the 100 meter butterfly will begin. What’s so special about it, you may ask? The anti-doping hunters of the world know it. Ultimately, eleven Chinese swimmers are scheduled to compete at these Olympic Games. They are involved in a scandal in which allegations were made that large numbers of positive doping samples were covered up. With Zhang Yufei and Yu Yiting, two of these eleven suspects are on the entry list for the women’s 100 meter butterfly.

What happens if Zhang, double Olympic champion three years ago in Tokyo, or relay world champion Yu even climbs onto the winner’s podium after the final on Sunday evening, will make many a swimming official tremble. At the 2019 World Championships, Briton Duncan Scott and Australian Mack Horton refused to pose for the usual photos at the award ceremony with swimming star Sun Yang, who was also heavily suspected of doping but not yet banned. He was also denied a handshake. The protest against Sun’s right to compete was so obvious that the World Aquatics Association threatened imitators with punishment. Even if Sun Yang was no longer able to qualify for Paris, a repeat is certainly conceivable.

After all, there remain enough Chinese names on suspect lists, including two other Olympic champions and multiple world and Asian champions, at whom some opponents turn up their noses. A total of 23 Chinese were mentioned in April in a joint investigation by ARD and the New York Times, which questioned the credibility of China’s anti-doping system and the watchdog function of the World Anti-Doping Agency Wada. Accordingly, the swimmers tested positive for the banned heart drug trimetazidine at a competition in Shijiazhuang in January 2021, i.e. before the Tokyo Games, but were not sanctioned. WADA believed the national anti-doping agency Chinada and the Chinese authorities, whose investigation had revealed the contamination of a hotel kitchen from which the athletes were fed.

WADA had stopped the investigation on the grounds that, even after a “review process lasting several weeks,” they could not be blamed for any fault or negligence. But how exactly did this review take place, observers wondered. It was only more than two months later that China found traces of trimetazidine in the extractor hood, on spice containers and in the kitchen drain. The athletes themselves were never provisionally suspended – as stipulated in the guidelines – and the cases were not published.

Despite such rule violations, WADA did not initiate an independent investigation. Not until today, although whistleblowers later claimed that at least two of the accused athletes were not staying in the hotel whose kitchen was allegedly contaminated. Instead, WADA supports the contamination explanation with the “low concentrations” of the doping substance that are below limit values.

Travis Tygart, head of the US Anti-Doping Agency, sharply criticized this inaction: “If this is true, it smacks of a cover-up at the highest level of WADA.” The head of Wada, Witold Bańka, defended himself against this, calling for the politicization of the case in the midst of the tensions between the major powers USA and China. The FBI is now even investigating.

From the point of view of the independent Swiss public prosecutor Eric Cottier, WADA behaved correctly. “There is nothing in the file – which is complete – to suggest that Wada favored the 23 swimmers,” it said in its report published in early July. Tygart was unimpressed. Most of the critical questions remained unanswered in the report, “since Wada itself selected the investigator and determined the limited scope of the investigation.”

This reaction displeased the International Olympic Committee (IOC) so shortly before the Paris Games. It expressed its “full confidence” and called on everyone to “respect Wada as the highest authority in the fight against doping.” Cottier’s independence and the approval of his report by the WADA executive, which is composed, among other things, of democratically elected athlete representatives and representatives from authorities from the USA or France, is beyond doubt.

It should be noted that ARD and the New York Times were never able to provide evidence of an actual cover-up or even of conscious doping abuse. For decades, China has been under general suspicion of fraud, especially in swimming, and not without justification. This time, however, the debate is more about WADA’s actions. It is not unusual that she does not initiate her own investigation and trusts the investigations of national agencies, especially since China was almost completely inaccessible to foreigners in 2021 due to corona. Banning possibly innocent athletes on this basis would certainly have caused just as much discussion.

Nevertheless, from the perspective of the German NADA doping hunters, questions remained unanswered. Its chairman Lars Mortsiefer told »nd« that all reports and statements in the proceedings should be transparently disclosed, whether internationally or nationally in China. This is the only way trust can be restored. He also suggested that the investigation procedure be made more precise; after all, NADA would have handled the case completely differently. »We notice that the regulations are interpreted differently around the world. It is stated relatively clearly that such a case will be reported anonymously by the laboratory to NADA. They then assign a positive sample to an athlete. And then each case must be treated individually,” i.e. not as mass contamination, as happened in China.

In such a case, the consequence would be that every athlete affected should have been notified and provisionally suspended. “He can then have the B sample opened, make a statement, challenge the suspension. But all of this only happens after notification, and this is exactly where I see a difference to the procedure in this case,” says Mortsiefer. “We have now been informed by WADA that associations can apparently deviate from this regulation.” The lawyer also missed that the declaration of contamination is investigated in laboratories accredited by Wada.

It is therefore not surprising that trust has also been lost among athletes worldwide: Record Olympic champion Michael Phelps recently told a committee of the US House of Representatives: “All attempts at reform by WADA have failed.” The right of all athletes to fair competition is threatened. The former swimming star spoke to Congress for the first time seven years ago, about state-orchestrated doping in Russia, which was, however, much more clearly documented.

The still active German Olympic champion Florian Wellbrock recently answered a question from the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” in the negative as to whether the same rules apply to all athletes: “Obviously not. As an athlete, you naturally perceived it as a bad joke.” The German medal hope in Paris also emphasized that he did not automatically suspect all Chinese opponents: “First of all, the presumption of innocence applies. And that’s how I treat people.” National coach Bernd Berkhahn still expects reactions to the Chinese acquittals in Paris. »We know that this casts a shadow over the games. There will also be protests in the swimming pool again. There’s so much politics involved that we as athletes or coaches can’t influence,” said Berkhahn.