Three Chinese swimmers reportedly tested positive before the 2021 incident but also went unpunished

For three of the 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for a banned substance ahead of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, it was not the first time.

According to the New York Times, three Chinese swimmers tested positive for another banned substance, clenbuterol, in 2016 and 2017. Two of them became Olympic champions in Tokyo despite multiple positive tests; both were acquitted on contamination pleas.

Three Olympic gold medalists were on the list of 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for trimetazidine (TMZ) in January 2021, about seven months before the Summer Games: Zhang Yufei, Wang ShunAnd Yang JunxuanThey were acquitted after Chinese authorities claimed they inadvertently ingested the banned substance due to contamination in a hotel kitchen, although TMZ’s source was never identified.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) released a statement on Friday claiming that the three Chinese swimmers had clenbuterol levels “six to 50 times lower” than the minimum limit in 2016 and 2017. In both cases, no provisional suspensions were issued and no disciplinary action was ultimately taken.

“The problem of contamination is real and well known in the anti-doping community,” said the WADA Director General. Olivier Niggli he said. “These were elite-level swimmers who have been tested very frequently in a country where meat contamination with clenbuterol is widespread. It is hardly surprising that they are among the hundreds of athletes who have also tested positive for minute amounts of the substance. In each of these cases, the source of the clenbuterol was confirmed to be food contamination.”

WADA appointed a Swiss prosecutor to investigate the case of the 23 Chinese swimmers in April, but this did not stop criticism from the US Anti-Doping Agency and top American athletes. Last month, the seven-time Olympic champion Katie Ledecky said her trust in the anti-doping system was “at an all-time low.”

When reports first emerged of the 2021 incident in which 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive on TMZ, China denied any wrongdoing and called the doping allegations “fake news.”