Three years ago, at the Tokyo Olympics, Chinese swimmer Zhang Yufei became a two-time Olympic champion, winning the 200m heat and as part of the 4x200m relay (both freestyle). Another award of the highest standard was brought to China by Wang Shun, who became the best in the 200 m individual medley. In the medal standings, the Chinese team took fourth place after the USA (11 gold medals), Australia (9) and Great Britain (4).
The Chinese champions won their medals despite the fact that seven months before the Games, traces of the banned drug trimetazidine (TMZ) were found in their doping tests. At that time, a total of 23 Chinese athletes were caught in the “network” of doping officers of the Chinese anti-doping organization Chinada. According to Chinada, TMZ entered their body as a result of infection in the kitchen of the Huayang Holiday Hotel in Shijiazhuang. Swimmers stayed in this hotel in January 2021 during one of the domestic competitions.
Mystery in the kitchen
Despite the fact that a prohibited drug was detected, all swimmers were allowed to participate in the 2020 Olympic Games (postponed to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic) after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accepted the arguments of their Chinese colleagues about the random nature of the infection. Many of them, led by the same Yufei, will perform at the Paris Olympics this summer, which recently caused a wave of indignation among their competitors. The story from Shijiazhuang became public after the German television channel ARD and the New York Times conducted a joint investigation, reading, in particular, a 61-page report by Chinada, which provides details of the episode in which the swimmers got into the body of a prohibited drug.
According to the Chinese side, during the investigation, employees of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security found traces of TMZ in the hood, on containers with spices and on sink drains in the hotel kitchen. There is no information in the report about how the cardiovascular drug, which is produced in pill form and sold by prescription, could have gotten into the food preparation area.
In similar situations, the national anti-doping authority is required to publicly report the discovery of prohibited substances in the athletes’ samples and provisionally suspend them from competition. Neither one nor the other was done, but, as WADA explained, the key argument for the Chinese side not to proceed was the random nature of the infection. At the same time, the level of TMZ in the urine samples was quite low, and the prohibited substance was not detected again in some swimmers who retested the test.
“At that time, there was an outbreak of COVID-19 in the region, it was difficult to demand from each athlete an explanation of how trimetazidine could have entered the body. Chinada decided to launch an investigation, which led to the conclusion that it was accidental contamination. The decision was made on June 15, until that moment there was not a single decision that WADA could appeal or transfer the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport,” WADA Chief Legal Officer Ross Wenzel said at a press conference the day before yesterday.
According to him, the requirement to publish information about the use of prohibited substances that has occurred is not mandatory if the anti-doping authority determines that no violation has occurred. This is precisely the position that the Chinese side took, which allowed it not to make public the very fact of identifying positive samples.
In this case, the day before there was a new turn – The Associated Press news agency, citing an internal WADA document, reported that in 2018-2019. China transferred almost $2 million to WADA in excess of the contributions required by the organization’s regulations.
According to the AP, the confidential minutes of the WADA Executive Committee meeting, which was obtained by the news agency, states that China transferred $993,000 to WADA in 2018 and $992,000 in 2019.
This does not indicate a direct link between the payments and the hushing up of the doping scandal, but it does indicate China’s growing influence over WADA. In particular, donor contributions were made on the eve of the election in November 2019 of Chinese Yang Yang, a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), to the position of Vice President of WADA, and last year the organization signed a three-year contract with the Chinese manufacturer of sporting goods Anta Sports to produce products under the brand WADA.
The World Anti-Doping Organization is financed on a 50-50 basis from the budgets of the governments of the participating countries and from the IOC.
At the same time, the budget of the Investigations and Intelligence Department created by WADA for the purpose of uncovering cases of violation of anti-doping policy is filled from donor contributions. Its size is estimated at $5 million, and the largest donors are China ($992,000 as of 2020) and India ($1 million).
Meanwhile, the reactions of “clean” athletes, who believe that the admission of Chinese swimmers to the Tokyo Games was a mistake, continue unabated.
“This news makes me furious. “I sympathize with the worthy athletes who were deprived of a unique chance to win medals due to a system error,” said Olympic champion Australian Mack Horton. Horton’s statement was also published on his Instagram account by his compatriot, five-time Olympic champion Emma McKeon. At the Tokyo Olympics, the Australian won a bronze medal in the 100m butterfly, losing to China’s Yufei in the fight for silver by eight hundredths of a second.
Tags: China suspected doping violations country increasing influence WADA
