As doping scandal blocks start of Olympics, US swimming team calls for honesty

July 24, 2024

0 83 2 minutes read

As doping scandal blocks start of Olympics, US swimming team calls for honesty

Follow our coverage of the Olympic Games in Paris.

PARIS — Seven-time Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky and other American swimmers have voiced support for strict anti-doping policies on the eve of the Paris Games, the first major international meet since news broke of a doping scandal involving Chinese swimmers. Ledecky said she is calling for rules that ensure fair competition to be applied “fairly and consistently around the world.”

Multiple media outlets, including the New York Times, revealed in April that 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for a banned substance seven months before the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, and that no one had ever been punished. The banned substance was trimetazidine (TMZ), a prescription heart medication that can enhance performance by increasing blood flow to the heart.

Some of the athletes who tested positive went on to win medals in Tokyo, feats that included three gold medals. The swimmers were cleared to compete in the Olympics after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accepted China’s findings suggesting the Chinese swimmers had unknowingly ingested the substance through food they ate at a hotel in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province.

WADA has stuck to its guns in the face of significant criticism from the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and elsewhere. It’s clearly a sensitive issue, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) made its loyalty clear earlier Wednesday in what should have been a straightforward approval process for Salt Lake City to host the 2034 Winter Olympics. The IOC is angry that a U.S. federal investigation is now underway into the Chinese swimmers accused of doping who were allowed to compete in Tokyo.

Before the IOC formally awarded the Games to Salt Lake City by a vote of 83-6, it forced a group of Utah politicians and U.S. Olympic leaders to sign an agreement saying they would lobby the federal government to end the investigation and change the anti-collusion law that allows such a case to be pursued.

The topic was high on the agenda for Ledecky and her colleagues even before the fuss at the IOC meeting. A reporter asked her at the pre-race press conference whether she thought she would have a fair fight in the competition that begins Saturday.

“I hope everyone here (in Paris) is going to compete clean this week,” Ledecky said. “But what really matters is, did they train clean? Hopefully they did. Hopefully there was testing all over the world. I think everyone has heard what the athletes are thinking. They want transparency. They want more answers to the questions that are still out there.

“At this point, we’re here to race. We’re going to race whoever’s on the track next to us. We’re not the ones getting paid to test, so we’re hoping that the people who are testing follow their own rules. That’s true now and in the future. We want to see some change for the future.”

American breaststroke swimmer Nic Fink said he also hopes all swimmers competing in the upcoming Games are clean.

U.S. men’s national team coach Anthony Nesty said he and women’s national team coach Todd DeSorbo will both continue to push for more transparency around testing and processes, saying it’s too important not to be.

“From our perspective, this is one of the best sports on the planet,” Nesty said. “In order for the sport to continue, we need to keep it as clean as possible. Hopefully, all the entities involved need to have all the checks and balances in place to ensure that the sport continues to grow and remains clean and safe.”