Phelps Tells House Wada Handling Of China-Go-Free-23 Is Existential Threat To Olympics; Schmitt Says ‘We’re Haunted’ By Doubts
Athletes have lost faith in the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) ensuring clean sport at the Paris Games next month because of its handling of 23 Chinese swimming positives in 2021, Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian in history, told a U.S House subcommittee on Tuesday night.
He was joined by fellow American Olympic swim champion Allison Schmitt, who noted how many athletes are “haunted” by doubts about whether doping has played a part in results.
Wada’s acceptance of a “mass contamination” explanation given by Chinese authorities at a time when the global regulator had no access to China during the Covid pandemic, was an existential threat to the Olympics, Phelps told the hearing in Washington DC.
Funding is on the line but Wada hit back with a statement in which it described the hearing as being “filled with the sort of emotional and political rhetoric that makes headlines but in fact does nothing constructive to strengthen the global anti-doping system”.
Winner of 23 golds atop 28 medals in the pool at four Olympics (2004 -2016), his eight victories at Beijing 2008 also an all-sports record, Phelps said athletes could no longer “blindly” place their faith in Wada because of its secretive handling of 23 positive tests returned by Chinese swimmers in 2021, four of whom raced to four gold and three silver medals in the pool at the Tokyo Olympic Games later that year.
The presence of banned heart-booster trimetazidine (TMZ) in the 23 was kept secret until an investigation by German broadcaster ARD ‘s doping unit and the New York Times unearthed the positive tests and reported them in April this year. Independent anti-doping experts from around the world have questioned that finding, led by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (Usada) CEO Travis Tygart, who called it “outrageous”.
Phelps told the U.S. House Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation yesterday: “As athletes, our faith can no longer be blindly placed in the World Anti-Doping Agency, an organisation that continues to prove that it is either incapable or unwilling to enforce its policies consistently around the world.”
It was frustrating, said Phelps, to be back before the same subcommittee seven years after he had testified over Wada’s handling of Russian state-sponsored doping. He said:
“Sitting here once again, it is clear to me that any attempts of reform at Wada have fallen short, and there are still deeply rooted, systemic problems that prove detrimental to the integrity of international sports and athletes’ right to fair competition, time and time again. Honestly, if we continue to let this slide any farther, the Olympic Games might not even be there.”
Michael Phelps – Photo: Michael Phelps, right, heralds Léon Marchand after the Frenchman now strained by the retired American’s coach Bob Bowman broke Phelps’ World record in the 400IM at World Championships (Photo by Patrick B. Kraemer / MAGICPBK)
Here’s Michael Phelps speaking with confidence and wisdom:
Phelps was joined by former training partner and fellow USA team London 2012 200m freestyle Olympic champion and four-times gold medallist Allison Schmitt, a member of the 4x200m freestyle team beaten to silver at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago by a Chinese quartet that included two of the TMZ cases, Zhang Yufei and Yang Junxuan.
Schmitt told the House hearing:
“We raced hard. We trained hard. We followed every protocol. We accepted our defeat with grace. Many of us will be haunted by this podium finish that may have been impacted by doping.”
Allison Schmitt – Photo – at the Covid-delayed Olympics in Tokyo in 2021 – by Patrick B. Kraemer
Thirteen of the Chinese swimmers who tested positive before Tokyo will compete again in Paris. They include Wang Shun, who took gold a hand ahead of Britain’s Duncan Scott in the 200m medley in Tokyo, and Qin Haiyang, who claimed three World titles last year and is the main threat to the ambitions of Britain’s 2016 and 2020ne Olympic champion Adam Peaty in the 100m breaststroke and French multiple golden hope Léon Marchand in the 200m. Peaty is bidding to become the first man after Phelps to win the same event, 100m breaststroke, at three Olympics.
At the hearing in Washington DC, Phelps nodded in agreement many time as members of Congress criticised Wada and said Americans should be able to watch the Olympics without wondering if the competition is “rigged”.
The schism caused bye the new China Crisis in anti-doping now threatens the ability of Wada to raise the funds it needs to carry out its work.
The Americas were the second-largest contributor to the US$20.2 million continental funding of the clean-sport regulator in 2021. The vast bulk of contributions came from Europe, with $9.7m, the Americas, $5.8m and Asia, $4m, with minor contributions made by Africa and Oceania.
The U.S. is the single biggest national contributor to Wada, spending $3.7m this year, but China has given Wada “$1.8m more than its required dues since 2018”, Tygart noted in his testimony when calling for the U.S. to place conditions on future funding.
Republican and Democratic lawmakers supported his view that Wada must agree to wholesale reform. Tygart saids pressure from the U.S. had a good chance of forcing Wada to reform. He said: “We should ensure that our money is going for a good purpose and right now it’s absolutely not.”
In a statement issued today, Wada slammed the House hearing as the latest round in a political power struggle between “two superpowers: namely the U.S. and China.
Wada has also come under fire from European and other anti-doping organisations and sports federations on the issue at the eye of the latest doping storm involving Chinese swimming.
Like the Usada, they want Wada to explain why it did not follow the “process and protocol” they would have expected, with athletes informed of an “adverse finding”, cases registered and a challenge to China’s version of events mounted at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas).
Wada today said it had declined an invitation to send a representative to the hearing in Washington D.C., where proceedings were “filled with the sort of emotional and political rhetoric that makes headlines but in fact does nothing constructive to strengthen the global anti-doping system”.
The views of politicians, Phelps and Schmitt were “another example of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) being dragged into a much broader struggle between two superpowers. As an independent and largely technical organization, Wada has no mandate to be part of those political debates.”
Wada then proceeded to drag itself further into the debate, by stating: “… the hearing sought to further politicize a relatively straightforward case of mass contamination that has been turned into a scandal by a small number of individuals, mainly in the United States”.
Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a U.S. representative from Washington, counted herself among them. She said: “The banned drug, which is only available in pill form, somehow ended up in the kitchen of a hotel the swimmers were staying at… but [Wada] somehow concluded this explanation was plausible.”
War Of Words Deepens
In a statement issued as we launched this article, Usada noted:
Colorado Springs, Colo. (June 26, 2024) – “It’s a sad day when WADA declines an invitation to testify under oath and hides behind press statements that attack and deflect and still do not answer the basic questions of why they allowed the cover up of 23 positive tests. Their defiance and fear mongering only further shows that they have lost their way as leaders, and while heartbreaking, they have no one to blame but themselves for causing the ongoing damage of the global anti-doping system.
“As desperate as they are to make this about two superpowers, the reality is the WADA system failed Chinese athletes as well as athletes from around world. When funding countries investigate the misuse of taxpayer dollars it isn’t politics, it’s called accountability. WADA’s threats against the U.S. should be seen for what they are: nothing more than a desperate effort to suppress the truth. The U.S. House of Representatives have already cut WADA’s funding for 2025, and while this is not the final step, it’s time for WADA leaders to step out of their echo chamber and see that their ongoing bullying and deflection strategy is not working.”
Usada – Photo: Wada – play true logo
“While they now admit CHINADA did not follow the rules, they have yet to answer for why they were complicit in this failure and sacrificed the rights of Chinese athletes and athletes worldwide. If WADA’s position is as they claim, then they should release the full China dossier and agree to go through a compliance audit as they require of others. And, while WADA wants to continue the race to the bottom and attack U.S. athletes and the anti-doping program in the U.S., they recently conducted a full in-person compliance audit on USADA and had glowing things to say about our program and efforts, so their statements now ring hollow.”
The Background That Troubles Phelps, Schmitt & Many More
In 2021, Wada accepted an explanation handed to it by the national anti-doping agency Chinada that mass contamination in a hotel kitchen had caused the 23 swimmers to test positive for TMZ in the first week of January 2021.
The cases were declared “no fault” after an investigation conducted by Chinese state public security agents 10 weeks after the swimmers had left the hotel. At a time when Wada was unable to send any independent agents into China to conduct its own inquiry, the agency accepted the report of agents who said they had found traces of TMZ in a spice container, the drains, extractor fans and elsewhere in the kitchen.
They were unable to find any hotel workers, including those connected to the hotel through deliveries and other third-party work who had been prescribed TMZ or who had a heart condition. In effect, they had no explanation for how a drug like TMZ, which comes in a form of tablet that would have to be crushed for contamination to occur, could have ended up in a spice pot in a commercial hotel kitchen.
While the drug showed up in an active kitchen 10 weeks after the swimmers had left, Wada reported that the levels of TMZ in the swimmer’s samples was negligible. As such, all 23 were cleared, the incident marked confidential and four of the swimmers went on to win two gold and a silver medal in solo events and gold and silver medals in relays at the Tokyo Olympic Games.
Six others also went on to claim World title and medals at World Championships after the Covid-delayed Olympics.
Wada has pointed out in various statements that it did not simply accept China’s word in 2021 but conducted its own expert inquiries, including checking with the manufacturers of TMZ whether China’s story was plausible. It also believed that a challenge at the Cas would not succeed because “the threshold to open an investigation was not met” and “there was no concrete basis to challenge the asserted contamination”.
In response to criticism, Wada appointed retired Swiss prosecutor Eric Cottier to conduct what it called an independent investigation into handling of the Chinese cases. Cottier took up the role on April 25 and was expected to deliver his findings within two months. An initial report is due anytime soon.