Athletes fear the next clean sport scandal

In the affair surrounding numerous positive doping tests among top Chinese swimmers and how they are dealt with, anger and incomprehension are growing among athletes. “The latest revelations threaten to make clean athletes completely resign,” said Maximilian Klein, director of sports policy at the German Athletes Association, on Monday. “Shortly before the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the credibility crisis in world sport and the anti-doping fight is worsening again.” Trust in the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has been shaken.

Travis Tygart, head of the US Anti-Doping Agency, accused the world authority and China of sweeping the positive tests under the carpet. WADA defended its decision not to impose sanctions. “The agency remains committed to the results of its scientific investigation and the legal decisions in this case,” the agency said on Monday night. All allegations in the matter have been examined, but there is not enough evidence to initiate new investigations.

23 swimmers tested positive

Media reports had previously raised doubts about the role of WADA and the Chinese Anti-Doping Agency in the fight against sports fraud. According to research by the ARD doping editorial team and the “New York Times” as well as a report by the Australian newspaper “Daily Telegraph”, 23 top swimmers tested positive for the banned heart drug trimetazidine at a national competition in China at the beginning of 2021.

China’s foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Monday in Beijing that the People’s Republic has always strictly adhered to WADA regulations, protected the physical and mental health of its athletes and upheld fair competition in sporting competitions. At the Tokyo Olympics in July and August 2021, the 30-member Chinese team won six medals, including three golds.

After examining the ARD documentation, WADA itself reassured that there was no reason to attack the Chinese authorities’ findings. They had determined that the positive doping tests were due to contamination in a hotel kitchen. Therefore, the swimmers went unpunished.

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Léa Krüger, member of the executive committee at Athletes Germany, expressed how critically other athletes view the case. “If the suspected cases turn out to be correct, WADA’s apparently negligent actions would be a slap in the face to all clean athletes: they stick to the rules. They accept the reversal of the burden of proof as a mainstay of the anti-doping fight and they naturally accept the burdens of the global doping control regime,” she said.