China, WADA and IOC find themselves in explanation crisis
23 Chinese Swimmers Tested Positive for Doping Substances in 2021 but Were Freely Dismissed and Not Suspended. ARD Investigations Threaten to Upend the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and International Olympic Committee (IOC) Just Before the Paris Olympics.
Few words, yet they cast doubt on WADA's credibility. "Some of the athletes didn't even stay at that hotel", reads a chat excerpt cited in ARD's latest film. One of the 23 positively tested Chinese swimmers is believed to have written this statement. The controversy surrounding their cases has heated up public discourse for months.
If this information is indeed authentic and accurate, WADA and the IOC would face a significant problem. To date, both WADA and the IOC have trusted the Chinese explanation that the 2021 positively tested athletes were innocent, attributing their positive tests to contamination with the banned substance Trimetazidine in the hotel kitchen. However, if some of the athletes did not reside in that hotel, this explanation would face significant cracks.
"The list of 23 looks like a fake," the chat continues. Moreover, another informant claims that not all the affected swimmers lived under the same roof. "Athletes have told me that for sure, two of the swimmers, possibly even more, were not in this hotel. They were in another accommodation," says the unnamed whistleblower in the film "Geheimsache Doping: Schmutzige Spiele," which has been available in the ARD Mediathek since the past Friday.
11 of the 23 Positive Cases to Compete in Paris
Has China manipulated its report at a crucial juncture? The veracity of these reports cannot be confirmed. Both WADA and the Chinese Anti-Doping Agency dismissed any cover-up allegations upon ARD's inquiry. The 23 swimmers did not respond to inquiries.
However, WADA and the IOC find themselves in an explanatory predicament just a week before the Paris Olympics' opening ceremony. "If all this is confirmed, I see WADA in a huge responsibility here, absolutely and clearly, to establish clarity," says Lea Krüger, a sabre fencer from the German Athletes' Association, regarding the investigation results: "Not only with regard to what happened at WADA, but explicitly about what happened in China. This cannot just remain as it is."
To date, the seemingly independent WADA investigation relies on the Chinese account. Consequently, all 23 athletes were cleared, and 11 of them are scheduled to compete in Paris as of the current status. Almost incidentally, it emerged that some swimmers wanted to learn about their positive tests only in April 2024. This would be a clear violation of WADA rules.
"It Smells of Cover-up"
The IOC had only recently expressed its "full trust" in WADA in repeated statements. WADA had previously obtained confirmation from Swiss prosecutor Eric Cottier in an interim report that the investigation into the China case had proceeded correctly. Subsequently, the IOC called on all parties involved in the system to respect WADA as the highest authority in the fight against doping.
Among WADA's stakeholders are the chief critics of the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and the United States, the largest state donor in the global anti-doping campaign. Germany also pays millions annually to the agency.
The USADA head is certainly not enthusiastic. "It smells like cover-up at the highest level of the World Anti-Doping Agency," Travis Tygart had already said in April: "It's a dagger in the back of every clean athlete. And for us, who fight daily around the earth ball for a clean sport."
- The allegations of a cover-up in China's doping cases have put the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) under scrutiny, especially as 11 of the 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for doping substances in 2021 are set to compete in the Olympic Games 2024 in Paris.
- The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) head, Travis Tygart, has accused WADA of a cover-up at its highest level, stating that it "smells like cover-up" in the investigation of the Chinese doping cases.
- The controversy surrounding the Chinese doping cases has raised questions about the credibility of WADA's investigations, particularly with regard to the 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for doping substances in 2021 but were not suspended despite staying in a hotel where Trimetazidine, a banned substance, was allegedly present.
