(New York) Three of the 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive but not sanctioned before the Tokyo Games in 2021 had already been tested positive for another product by anti-doping without being suspended in 2016 and 2017, revealed the New York Times on Friday.
According to the American daily, three swimmers tested positive for clenbuterol in 2016 and 2017, but were cleared by anti-doping who accepted the theory of food contamination, without making their cases public. Two of the swimmers won Olympic titles in Tokyo in 2021 and the third now holds a world record, according to the New York Times.
“Each of the three swimmers had been tested with a concentration of clenbuterol so low that it was between 6 and 50 times lower than the minimum level to trigger a case of 5 ng/L introduced in 2019 to deal with the significant contamination phenomenon to clenbuterol through meat”, defends the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in a press release.
“The contamination problem is real and well known to anti-doping. In recent years there have been thousands of confirmed cases of contamination, in various forms, including more than 1000 for contamination after eating meat in Mexico, China, Guatemala, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and in other countries […] In these three cases, food contamination was considered to be the origin of the presence of clenbuterol,” adds the director general of the body Olivier Niggli, quoted in the press release.
WADA was greatly shaken by press revelations at the end of April on the positive tests of 23 Chinese swimmers for trimetazidine at the beginning of 2021 which were not followed by sanctions. The body says it has accepted the theory of “environmental food contamination” and refutes any desire to conceal these cases.
The Montreal-based organization said on Friday that it regretted the “sensationalist and imprecise” presentation by the New York Times of the affair, which notably earned it harsh criticism from the American anti-doping agency (USA), one month before the Olympic Games. from Paris (July 26 -August 11).
USADA boss Travis Tygart once again attacked WADA on Friday which, according to him, “once again allowed China to slip positive cases under the rug”, he said in a statement sent to the AFP.
“Athletes around the world were subject to the rules in force at the time, but the world is now learning that WADA reserved preferential treatment for a few,” the American writes.
WADA appointed an independent prosecutor on April 25 to examine its handling of the case in an attempt to put out the fire.
The director of the Global Athlete organization Rob Koehler, former deputy director of WADA, estimated in a statement sent to AFP that “athletes’ confidence in WADA and in anti-doping had reached a historic low” .
“The only way for WADA to regain the trust of athletes is to make public the report from the Chinese anti-doping agency, and all the emails,” said Mr. Koehler.
