Chinese Three Of The 23-Go-Free Were Set Free When They Tested Positive For Clenbuterol in 2016-17
Three of the 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for a banned heart booster in January 2021 but were cleared to swim on by domestic and then global anti-doping authorities had previously tested positive for the steroid, clenbuterol, but escaped justice on that occasion too.
The New York Times did not name the three swimmers until deep into its text yesterday evening in the United States but the paper said that the three swimmers included two who would take gold at the Tokyo Olympic Games and one who would go on to become a World record holder tested positive for the steroid in in 2016 and 2017.
Chinese authorities named the swimmers in paperwork related to the 2021 cases, according to the New York Times. Two off those named by the NYT are key rivals in Paris to the likes of Britain’s Duncan Scott and Adam Peaty and France’s Leon Marchand: Wang Shun, Olympic 200m medley champion, then teenager Qin Haiyang, 2023 World 50, 100m and 200m breaststroke champion and 200m world record holder who reached peak form in 2017 but slumped mysteriously between 2018 and 2022 before emerging as a swimmer reborn, a triple World champion and global pace setter last year.
The third is Yang Junxuan, who was 15 at the time of her positive test in 2017 and in 2021 claimed gold and silver medals in the 4x200m freestyle and 4x100m mixed medley relays, respectively, at the Tokyo Olympics.
In 2016, this author reported in The Times (London) that the Chinese authorities were covering up five positive doping tests because they wanted to avoid disclosing them before the trials for that year’s Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. The whistleblowers who informed me were also moist right: the day after China’s anti-doping agency publicly acknowledged that six of its swimmers had tested positive for banned drugs.
No athletes were named and the cases were said by FINA at the time to be “in process”. According to Chinada, three of those positives had occurred six months earlier, in 2015 – and were for clenbuterol. China declined to identify the other substances or the names of any of the athletes.
In 2016, WADA, engulfed in the Russian state-backed doping scandal, told The Times the Chinese positives as “very serious” and vowed to deal with the situation “head on.” No known formal action was ever taken.
Just why the three cases from 2016 and 2017 never made it to the public domain remains unanswered. All three swimmers are expected to contend for medals again at the Paris Games in July, the New York Times reports.
Those cases were detected 5-6 years after WADA’s science team were engaged in that research into meat contaminated with clenbuterol.
It was had to see how the schism in world anti-doping could get any worse but the latest twist, related to hidden tests uncovered by this journalist eight years ago, has sharpened the blade of a crisis:
On April 20 this year, it was revealed that the 23 had tested positive for Trimetazidine (TMZ) in competition in the first few days of January 2021. The saga and how it unfold:
The 2021-24 Chinese Doping Crisis
ARD’s “Doping Top Secret – The China Files” – Parts 1-4 – Watch Why WADA U-Turn Is Urgent
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
WADA Tested On State Of Independence In Go-Free-23 Chinese Doping Positives Inquiry
Chinada Says It Has Worked With “Zero-Tolerance” Attitude Towards Doping
Sport Integrity Australia Backs USADA Call For WADA Review Of China’s Go-Free 23 Positives
Chinada Says It Has Worked With “Zero-Tolerance” Attitude Towards Doping
Zhang Yufei Books Ticket To Defence Of 200 ‘Fly Crown Under A Cloud Of Controversy (see below in this Vortex- Chinese Championships coverage)
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
Mass contamination was reported by China, on the strength of an investigation by Chinese state agents, according to the national anti-doping agency Chinada. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and World Aquatics – then FINA – accepted China’s explanation and the 23 were set free on grounds of “no fault”.
The paper cites Rob Koehler, the director general of Global Athlete, as saying: “Athletes we have spoken to are appalled with the antidoping system and WADA,” said “Athletes are expected to follow the antidoping rules to a T, but yet the very organization holding them accountable does not have to.”
Looking back at the 2016-17 incidents and how investigations by this author and The Times then did not lead to action, he added: “It will bring athletes’ confidence in the system to an all-time low, which I didn’t think was possible.:
In a statement to the New York Times, WADA confirmed that the three Chinese swimmers had tested positive for what it called “trace amounts” of a banned steroid, clenbuterol. It blamed the 2016 and 2017 cases on food contamination, which it labeled “pervasive.”
“The issue of contamination is real and well-known by the antidoping community,” the WADA director general, Olivier Niggli, said, 13 years after WADA highlighted Dutch research “aimed at finding a strategy and marker to distinguish Clenbuterol in urine from athletes due to meat consumption or illegal use of Clenbuterol containing supplement or preparations”.
“The athletes in question were three such cases,” he added. “They were elite level swimmers who were tested on a very frequent basis in a country where meat contamination with clenbuterol is widespread so it is hardly surprising that they could be among the hundreds of athletes who also tested positive for tiny amounts of the substance.”
WADA described the athletes’ levels of clenbuterol as “so low that they were between six and 50 times lower than the minimum reporting level.”
Standard procedure would be to test those cases via a process that would involve public identification of the athletes because the banned substance was clearly in their system.
World Aquatics has confirmed the cases. In a statement it noted: “We can confirm that there were positive tests for clenbuterol in 2016 and 2017 that involved Chinese athletes. If any information comes to light which suggests that the cases should have been dealt with differently, then we will, of course, look at it very carefully.”
The global swim regulator is currently conducting an antidoping audit review, which will is due to report around the turn of the month and is tasked with producing “clear guidelines on how similar cases should be handled in future.”
The New York Times reports that the details about the three positives in 2016 and 2017 were included in a confidential report written by Chinese anti-doping authorities that was then used to clear the 23 swimmers in 2021. So, one set of positives fed into the argument for setting the next wave of positives free, it appears. Contamination was the common reasoning, or excuse, depending on how the information is viewed.