Athletes Connected To A Doping Scandal Dominate China’s Olympic Swim Squad

(NationalUSNews.com) — A notable portion of the Chinese Olympic swimming team is tied to a drug scandal from three years ago, according to new reports.

Earlier this week, the Chinese Swimming Association revealed the 31 members of its team for the upcoming summer Olympic Games in Paris, France. Eleven of their team members were involved in a doping scandal, including gold medal winners Wang Shun and Zhang Yufei. These athletes tested positive for trimetazidine in 2021, but the results were not released until this year.

According to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), three of 23 Chinese athletes were tested also came back positive for a performance-enhancing drug called clenbuterol. These results reportedly came back in 2016 and 2017, and the three athletes who tested positive for the additional prohibited substance are set to compete for China in the Paris Olympics.

In April, WADA received backlash over the revelation that 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for drugs before the 2021 Olympics, which were held in Tokyo, Japan. According to the organization, which was facing scrutiny for failing to hold the athletes accountable for breaking rules, it did not seek punishment for the violators when the testing occurred due to the fact that it accepted results from a Chinese investigation.

This probe determined that the positive drug tests were the result of hotel food contamination rather than athletes intentionally taking the substances before competition. Additionally, WADA stated that it was unable to share the test results with the public due to anti-doping policy since the anti-doping group in China decided there were no violations committed.

News of the 11 drug-positive athletes competing on China’s Olympic swim team has sparked outrage from fellow athletes. Katie Ledecky, an American swimmer who has won seven gold medals at the Olympics, recently described her confidence in the anti-doping system as being at “an all-time low,” noting it would be “hard” competing against some of these scandal-plagued athletes in Paris.

Another United States swimmer, Lilly King, said the situation is “extremely frustrating” and that it leads athletes to wonder if the competition is “not fair.”