Chinese Olympic Doping Case Exposed

We are less than a hundred days from the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympic Games in Paris, and a new doping scandal has erupted involving Olympic swimmers from China. Nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers were cleared to compete despite testing positive for a banned drug prior to the Tokyo games. Jeffrey Brown has the story.

Several of the swimmers who tested positive went on to win medals, including three gold medals. Chinese authorities and the World Anti-Doping Agency, or WADA, had found the drug TMZ, but cleared the swimmers and did not flag problems to Olympic or other officials. In fact, none of this was widely known until the New York Times and a German TV broadcaster broke the story this weekend. TMZ is the same drug that led to Russian Olympic figure skater Kamila Valieva's four-year ban after she was disqualified from the 2022 Beijing Olympics. For now Chinese officials and WADA stand by the results of their initial investigation, saying the use of the drug was not intentional. But that has not satisfied many in the sports world, including the US Anti-Doping Agency. Its CEO Travis Tygart joins me now, and welcome to you. Your contention is that this should have been raised well before those Olympics and gone through a more standard process?

It's not just my contention, it's actually the rules require it, and it's beyond question that China didn't follow the rules. They effectively swept this under the carpet because they didn't find a violation, they didn't announce a violation, they didn't disqualify the athletes from the event at which they tested positive. And this is absolutely mandatory under the world anti-doping code that all nations are required to follow. And that didn't happen.

Now WADA says that it did consult with some scientists, it did conclude that this was unintentional. It said that, of course, this was happening during the COVID lockdown. That made some of the investigation, the traditional on-the-ground investigation impossible.

Yeah, listen, it's just simply not believable to think during COVID lockdown that two months after these athletes ate in a hotel, that two months later they continued to find or found, and remember it was the Chinese security that founded and did this report that WADA just accepted, that TMZ somehow still remained in this hotel kitchen and somehow got into these athletes' systems. I remember, and many of your viewers I'm sure do too, those terrible times during COVID, many restaurants weren't open. The ones that were doing a daily, if not hourly cleaning. So to think that this drug that has no business being in a kitchen somehow lasted there for two months during this COVID time period is just incredible to believe. (02:56) But even if you did believe Tinkerbell and sprinkled some fairy dust, and that's what caused these positive tests under the rules, it is without question, you still have to disqualify, you still have to fine the violation, and you still have to announce the violation. And this is the tragedy for athletes, because this could have been announced at the time and we wouldn't necessarily be here. But unfortunately they allowed China to not follow the rules and sweep this under the carpet, and then WADA didn't do their job in ensuring that the rules were effectively enforced, and it took a whistleblower and other people in the New York Times and this German documentary public station to come out and expose what we're now seeing. And of course we're all horrified. And you have to ask, why didn't they do the things that were required?

We did note the different response to the Russian figure skater. Why do you think this was treated differently by WADA?

Listen, I think on the eve of the games, and WADA and its press conference today acknowledged the games were coming, and that obviously had a major influence on them. The Valieva got out during the games, and I think if you go back and look at it, it was actually leaked out. So at that point, WADA had no choice. They were forced because the information was out in the world. And look, they did what they should have done under the rules with Valieva, and they did that there in stark contrast what has happened with these cases, and that's something that is frankly just inexplicable.

Tell us briefly about TMZ and how much difference can it make in a swim race?

It was a drug I think originally developed in Russia. It's a prescription drug, so it doesn't show up in the environment or magically appear in kitchens. It is controlled. It's not even available here in the United States, but it is in some parts of the world. Comes in pill form. And look, it's prohibited in the most serious category of doping products. It's banned at all times because it can help you in training, it can help you in recovery, it can help you in an event. And it's why it's prohibited, it's why a mandatory four-year sanction is what's put in place, like in the Valieva, the Russian figure skating case. (05:04) Unless you can demonstrate the source and that you are without fault it getting into your system, which hasn't been done to the level of satisfaction that needs to be done here. But again, even if you believed this story of contamination that the Chinese government put to WADA that they readily accepted for some unknown reason without doing a full investigation and not much of one, actually, you still have to announce those cases, and China didn't do that. And they acknowledge that China didn't do that. That's a cover-up of these cases by the Chinese Anti-Doping Agency, and WADA went along with it.

So what do you think should happen now? I mean, here we are less than a hundred days before the start of the next Olympics. What about the medals that were won by those swimmers? What about what's coming? How much can other athletes and all of the millions of people watching trust the results?

Look, I think it's a collapse of the anti-doping system, and it has to be immediately repaired. There has to be major reconstruction at the World Anti-Doping Agency to make sure something like this never happens again. But more importantly, for those athletes at the 2021 games, who competed against these swimmers that we now know had positive tests on the eve of those games, we have to get to the bottom of what actually happened here and find some justice so that those athletes have confidence. And going into 2024, Paris, if some of these swimmers with these positive tests end up showing up and many are still swimming at high levels and likely will be on the Chinese swim team, it's going to be a disaster. So we can't allow that to happen. So immediately we need to find a way to get justice and ensure that those who rightfully should have won and be recognized as the winners are rewarded for that, and their hard work and sacrifice that they've put in. It's an injustice that we can't stand by and just allow to happen right now.

All right, Travis Tygart, thank you very much.

Thank you. Really appreciate your time.