Wada, the international anti-doping agency, called a press conference to explain why it did not go ahead when China’s anti-doping agency cleared the 23 national team swimmers who submitted positive doping tests for the banned substance Trimetazidine (TMZ).
There were more than Travis Tygart, the embattled leader of the US anti-doping agency USADA, who said they suspected a cover-up. Over the years, Tygart has been a strong contributor to exposing many cheaters, including Lance Armstrong, and now Wada felt compelled to explain his actions.
WADA manager Witold Banka said that they followed the international code that regulates all anti-doping work and that they would act in the same way if they had to redo the process.
He explained that under the code, the Chinese Anti-Doping Agency had the right to first seek a natural explanation for the positive samples, before making them public and suspending the athletes pending investigation. In its in-depth investigations, Wada has concluded that the Chinese explanation, that the swimmers, some of them future Olympic gold medalists, ingested TMZ via food prepared in the kitchen of the hotel where they all stayed, is the most plausible. Therefore, it was right to free them.
And if this was the issue of state-controlled doping a la Russia, why would China conduct tests on the sims and report them as positive if they knew the problems it would cause, argued Günther Younger, WADA’s head of investigations.
But some important questions remained unanswered. Why was a heart medication popular at the time in connection with doping found in the Chinese hotel kitchen and how did it end up in the food of the national team swimmers?
When Wada warned athletes ahead of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics against eating Chinese meat, it was because it might contain the anabolic steroid clenbuterol, not a medicine used to treat patients with angina.
TMZ, whose performance-enhancing effect is debated, came into focus when Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva got caught during the Beijing Olympics. Like the Chinese, Valieva argued that she ingested TMZ accidentally. First it was a glass of water contaminated with her grandfather’s medicine, later a dessert. It was an explanation that Wada did not buy because the 15-year-old also had several similar preparations in his blood.
Wada explained that due to the isolation rules during the pandemic, it was not possible to conduct closer research into the Chinese contamination theory. As long as the questions remain unanswered, conspiracy theories will continue to flourish and China and Wada will have to live with the suspicion that everything has not gone right.
One thing is certain. The whole affair has further soured an already frosty relationship between Wada and Usada.
Wada’s threat to take legal action against Tygart and his gang remains. It is a conflict that will not strengthen international anti-doping efforts.
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Infected conflict after doping disclosure: “Scandalous statements”
Data: 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for doping with heart medication
