ARD’s “Doping Top Secret – The China Files” – Parts 1-4 – Watch Why WADA U-Turn Is Urgent
The China Files by ARD – last night, the German television station broadcast its Sportschau program on the new China Doping Crisis in sport coincided with the launch of all four videos, with English subtitles, setting out just why China should be barred from the swimming events at the Paris Olympic Games pending an inquiry on the scale of the Russian Crisis that blocked Putin’s systematic doping system out of the athletics events at Rio 2016.
Watch the program in four parts, with English sub-titles, at the foot of this file
The Full List of Positives:
Olympic champions: Zhang Yufei; Wang Shun; Yang Junxuan (23022 World Champion)
2023 World Champion: Qin Haiyang
Other Olympic medallists: Yan Zibei
Other World-Championship medallists: Sun Jiajun; Peng Xuwei; Yu Yiting; Ge Chutong
Others, including Asian Champions: He Junyi; Fei Liwei; Cheng Long; Wang Jianjiahe; Yu Hexin; Shen Jiahao; ; Chen Juner; Zhang Ruixuan; Xuwei Peng; Lin Tao; Wang Xueer; Wang Yichun; ; Wang Yutian; Wang Zhou; Zhang Ziyang
The China Crisis investigation was conducted by the well-funded ARD Doping unit that put together the China Files.
It centres ion the 23 positive cases of trimetazadine, though ARD notes that the “strictly confidential” Chinada report into mass adverse findings cited 28 positive tests for banned substances, involving those 23 athletes. They were returned at the late 2020 National team trials and training camp (competition, January 1-3, 2021) that took place in a northern city 300km beyond Beijing.
The work of the ARD team, like ours, including the name on the tin – State of Swimming, SOS – and that of other investigative reporters, shows yet again how people within the sports system have so little trust in any of the whistle-blowing and integrity processes the IOC and others have built and boasted about in the past several years that they turn to media. Why?
Having expressed USADA’s concerns in private before the latest Chinese doping bomb dropped, CEO of the American agency Travis Tygart pulled no punches at the weekend when he said that while it was “crushing to see that 23 Chinese swimmers had positive positive tests … It’s even more devastating to learn that the world anti-doping agency and Chinese anti-doping agency secretly, until now, swept these positives under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.”
The man who knocked Lance Armstrong* off his bike in 2012 with a catalogue of evidence that the American cyclist had doped his way to the top, called WADA’s decision “a devastating stab in the back of clean athletes and a deep betrayal of all the athletes who compete fairly and follow the rules”.
WADA issued the following response threatening legal action against Tygart – and others where “WADA reserves its right to take legal action as appropriate”. WADA will hold a world media conference online today, declaring in a statement that it is sticking to its decision to take no action on China in relation to 23 positive tests in 2020-21.
It stated: “Following WADA’s review of the documentary, the Agency still stands firmly by the results of its scientific investigation and legal decision concerning the case. We are equally confident that WADA’s independent Intelligence and Investigations Department followed up on all allegations received, which were not corroborated by any evidence; and thus, did not meet WADA I&I’s threshold to open an investigation.”
Now the ARD has posted their China File in four parts on YouTube.
As you watch the four videos below, consider what it means to find the courage to speak out on what has the stench of systematic deception involving what in Germany, conscious of the dark days of GDR fraud in sport not only breaks the WADA Code but is a crime: child doping.
Our reports on the new China Doping Crisis:
Caution: Olympic Hotel Contamination May Contain Trimetazidine? We’d Be Nuts To Think So
And, one of my many, more recent, articles on warning signs down the decades, which links directly into the events of the 2020-21 training camp and speed trials at Shiajiazhuang and then the Olympic trials in 2021, without any of the Chinese swimmers and the Chinese system having complied with standard procedure when a swimmer tests positive, regardless of whether it may involve contamination. As Travis Tygart, CEO of USADA, has pointed out: “In all contamination cases that we have proven, we provisionally suspended the athlete, disqualified the results, found a violation and issued an announcement as required by the rules.”
Yet, that’s not what happened and all 23 positive athletes who raced at this event, which raised a lot of questions at the time:
Why Qinghuangdao Trials Raise Questions About The Development Of Chinese Swimming Talent
And In The Times and Sunday Times:
‘Dirty hands and China’s 23 buried positives’ – US fury at Wada
Top Chinese swimmers won medals in Tokyo despite failed doping tests
Here are parts 1-4 of The China Files. Further coverage and analysis to follow here at SOS.
The China Files – from the ARD Doping Unit
SOS Analysis
The ARD China Files: Part 1 – SOS Analysis: Spies, Spice & Mass Contamination
The ARD China Files: Part 2 – SOS Analysis: On The Trail Of An Existential Precedent?
The ARD China Files: Part 3 – SOS Analysis: Lab Trials For TMZ & Testing Timeframes
SOS Related Coverage
Sport Integrity Australia Backs USADA Call For WADA Review Of China’s Go-Free 23 Positives
USADA Calls For Independent Prosecutor & Overhaul of WADA In New China Crisis
WADA In Staunch Defence Of Decision Not To Challenge 28 Positives In 23 Chinese Swimmers
Sunday Essay: Caution: Olympic Hotel Contamination May Contain Trimetazidine? We’d Be Nuts To Think So
New China Crisis As ARD Reveals That 23 Swimmers, Zhang, Wang & Qin On The List, Tested Positive For Sun’s 1st-Offence Drug
Absolutely devastating for swimming and all aquatics sports. Zhou jihong the head of Chinese Swimming Association and a World Aquatics VP has got to go. She is tainted beyond belief after this, and let’s not forget the diving scandal that happened in Tokyo where she was behaving unethically.