Outrage in China for double standards in the US about doping at the Olympics

Brasil de Fato

In the last days of the Paris Olympic Games, the media, agencies and users of Chinese social media platforms were outraged by the United States’ attitude regarding doping in competitions.

On Monday (12), the hashtag “China wins over the US in the antidoping battle” was the trending topic on the Chinese social media app Weibo for four hours. The hashtag refers to the understanding that China had managed to overcome “the intense pressure by the United States” to prevent its athletes from being affected by the US doping campaign. Both China and the US got 40 gold medals, but according to the tiebreaker criteria – total of silver medals – China was in the second position (it was 44 against 27).

In April, two months before the Paris Games began, The New York Times and the German TV channel ARD published a news story titled “The Chinese Swimmers tested Positive for Banned Drugs, Then Won Olympic Gold.” The text was about a positive test by one of the Chinese swimmers for trimetazidine (TMZ), during a competition in China in June 2021, a little before the Tokyo Olympic Games.

From then on, other US media outlets and the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) accused China of having disrespected international rules. USADA’s president, Travis Tygart, accused the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) of covering, with the China Anti-Doping Agency (CHINADA) the use of drugs by Chinese swimmers. In an interview with Politico, Tygart even said that WADA and the Chinese athletes threatened to turn the Paris Games into a “disaster.” 

For their part, both WADA and CHINADA rejected the insinuations and accusations. The Chinese agency said that what it had found at the time was an “extremely low TMZ concentration,” and that it had investigated the “organization of the event, accommodation, use of medication and supplements, as well as doping test procedures”. It concluded that the athletes had been exposed to the substance through food/environmental contamination as a result of TMZ being detected in the event’s kitchen. The agency decided not to hold the athletes responsible and informed both WADA and World Aquatics (formerly known as the International Swimming Federation, FINA), the sole regulatory body for aquatic sports worldwide.

After the news story, WADA released a statement affirming that their Department of Sciences analyzed the case in June and July 2021, “collected additional, unpublished scientific information on TMZ” and consulted “ independent scientific experts to test the contamination theory and also whether low doses of TMZ could have benefited the athletes during a swimming competition event.” According to the data, the agency concluded it wasn’t possible to discharge the contamination hypothesis and that the athletes weren’t considered guilty or negligent.

An important piece of information USADA’s declaration revealed was that it had contacted WADA last year to inform that an “unspecified source” had denounced to them that China had hidden positive tests for TMZ.

“This information was clearly erroneous in that the positive TMZ cases had been reported and decided by CHINADA, as well as thoroughly reviewed by both WADA and World Aquatics nearly two years prior,” said WADA in the statement.

In other words, the United States had the information since 2023, but decided to make the matter public two months before the Paris Olympics.

The country had even made allegations of cover-ups of doping cases among Chinese swimming athletes to WADA as early as 2020, even before the TMZ contamination case in 2021.

Both WADA and the Chinese agency said they could take legal action against defamation.

Imbalance in the application of tests

The campaign ended up making the Chinese swimming team have the highest average of anti-doping tests per athlete that would go to Paris. Adding up to all the tests conducted by different anti-doping organizations, China was the swimming team (among the largest) subjected to the most tests at these Olympics, and by a significant margin, according to data from World Aquatics. 

With 46 swimmers, the US had an average of 6 tests per athlete, while China, which had 31 athletes, had an average of 21 tests each. The average of other countries (all from the Global North) was also low compared to China’s.

Paul Gasol, a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Athletes’ Commission, said he found the situation “regrettable”. “We have seen the number of tests that Chinese swimmers have been exposed to just to make sure and give peace of mind to the rest of the world (…) especially USADA, to see that there is nothing [wrong], there is absolutely nothing [wrong].” Gasol, who is a former Spanish basketball player, called for respect for WADA’s authority and its testing system.

Peculiar turnaround at the end

Four days before the end of the Paris Olympics, the United States simply defended its violation of the world anti-doping code. Last Wednesday (7), Reuters revealed a scheme used by the US agency from 2011 to 2014 that allowed drug rule violators to continue competing to act as informants. 

WADA, which was informed of the scheme in 2021, said the practice violated international rules. After the story was published, the agency released a statement confirming the allegations.

The international agency revealed that there was a case of an elite athlete who “competed in Olympic qualifiers and international events in the United States, admitted to taking steroids and EPO [erythropoietin, a substance that can be used for doping], but was allowed to continue competing until retiring.”

“This athlete’s case was never made public, the results were never disqualified, the cash prize was never returned, and no suspension was ever served,” denounced WADA.

In response to Reuters, Tygart defended the illegal scheme practiced by the organization he represents: “It’s an effective way of dealing with these larger, systemic problems (…) If you have agents or others who are hunting athletes and trafficking… I think it’s totally appropriate.”

CHINADA has called for an independent investigation into the case. “USADA has long ignored its own anti-doping shortcomings while trying to impose double standards on other countries, exposing its hypocritical and inconsistent approach to anti-doping rules,” the Chinese agency said in a statement to Global Times.

The Chinese agency also called for more tests to be carried out on US athletes, mentioning the recent example of sprinter Erriyon Knighton who tested positive for the anabolic steroid called trenbolone in March of this year, but was cleared by USADA to compete in Paris because the result was due to eating meat.

“Why has USADA never warned American athletes about the risk of trenbolone contamination in meat?” the Chinese agency asked.

“If trenbolone is indeed a common contaminant in the United States, CHINADA would like to remind athletes around the world, including American athletes, to pay close attention to the meat contamination problem in the country.”