World Swimming Federation confirms US investigations into Chinese swimmers

GENEVA (AP) — The International Swimming Federation said its top official has been ordered to testify as a witness in the U.S. criminal investigation into 23 Chinese swimmers who failed doping tests in 2021 but were allowed to continue competing.

The news comes just three weeks before the Paris Olympics, which will feature 11 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for the banned heart drug three years ago.

The swimmers won three gold medals for China at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, just weeks after the World Anti-Doping Agency declined to challenge Chinese authorities’ explanation of food contamination at a hotel as the basis for their non-ban.

These decisions, which World Aquatics also made separately, were only announced in April through reports in the New York Times and the German broadcaster ARD.

A House committee on China on May 21 called on the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate the case under a federal law that allows investigations into alleged doping conspiracies even if they took place outside the United States.

World Aquatics confirmed to the Associated Press on Thursday that CEO Brent Nowicki has been subpoenaed to testify in the investigation.

“World Aquatics can confirm that its executive director, Brent Nowicki, has been served with a subpoena from the U.S. government,” the association said in a statement to AP. “He is working to arrange a meeting with the government that will, in all likelihood, eliminate the need for him to testify before a grand jury.”

World Aquatics declined to answer questions about where and when Nowicki was served with his subpoena, nor did it say which office is conducting the investigation.

“Consistent with our usual practice, the FBI does not confirm or deny the existence of an investigation,” the bureau said in an email response Thursday.

The case of the Chinese swimmers could become the most spectacular use yet of a US federal law passed in 2020 as a result of Russia’s long-running scandal of state-sponsored doping in sports.

The 23 swimmers tested positive for trimetazidine in January 2021 and were recorded in the global anti-doping database weeks later. They included Zhang Yufei, who later won Olympic gold in the women’s 200-meter butterfly and 4×200-meter freestyle relay, and Wang Shun, the men’s 200-meter individual medley champion.

A later investigation by Chinese authorities revealed that traces of the substance were found in the kitchen of a hotel where the team was staying. How and why the drug, which was prescribed in tablet form, got there was not explained.

WADA accepted the theory, allowing the Chinese swimmers to continue competing, and has since described the case as “a relatively clear-cut case of mass contamination.”

The agency has since defended its handling of the case, which was kept secret in 2021, saying it had no way to independently disprove the theory during the COVID-19 pandemic, when travel to China was not possible.

WADA lawyers said in April this year they did not have evidence to win separate appeals against the 23 swimmers ahead of the Tokyo Olympics. Any appeals seeking the swimmers’ bans would have been heard at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, where Nowicki long served as lead counsel before joining World Aquatics in 2021.

“This scandal raises serious legal, ethical and competitive concerns and may represent a broader state-sponsored strategy by the People’s Republic of China to compete unfairly at the Olympic Games, as Russia has done before,” the Chinese Communist Party’s special committee said in a letter to the Justice Department and FBI.

The case was also raised at a congressional hearing last month, where swimmer great Michael Phelps said athletes had lost faith in WADA as a global regulator trying to keep cheaters out of the sport.

Representatives of the Montreal-based agency declined an invitation to the hearing, saying it would be “inappropriate to be drawn into a political debate before a U.S. Congressional committee about a case from another country, particularly while an independent investigation into WADA’s handling of the case is underway.”

This report is still pending and was prepared by a former prosecutor from the Swiss canton of Vaud, appointed by WADA. This canton is home to the International Olympic Committee and the governing bodies of many Olympic sports.

Travis Tygart, head of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, told the Associated Press that an ongoing federal investigation could create “fear among sports officials traveling to the U.S. that they may have to answer questions from the FBI about their activities.”

The 2028 Summer Olympics will be hosted by the USA in Los Angeles, and on July 24, the IOC in Paris is expected to confirm Salt Lake City as the host city for the 2034 Winter Olympics.

The Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act, named after a whistleblower who exposed Russian state-sponsored doping, was passed with bipartisan support and received widespread support from the global sporting community as it aims to criminalize doping.

However, WADA lobbied against what it saw as the risk of overreach through the “extraterritorial” jurisdiction it could confer on US federal authorities, and the IOC also expressed its concerns.

The Rodchenkov Act, Tygart said, “was passed in 2021 with broad support from athletes, sports and multinational governments because WADA could not be trusted to be a strong, fair global regulator that would protect clean athletes and fair sport.”

___ Pells reported from Denver, Colorado.

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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

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