news

[Global Times reporter Chen Yitong] According to reports from Reuters, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post and other media, U.S. lawmakers from both parties introduced a bill on Tuesday (30th) threatening to cut U.S. funding to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), claiming that the agency had failed to conduct a proper investigation into the previous "Chinese swimmers who tested positive due to contamination."

The WADA logo was displayed at the World Anti-Doping Annual Symposium held in Lausanne, Switzerland on March 12, 2024. Source: Foreign media

According to Reuters, the so-called "Restoring Confidence in the World Anti-Doping Agency Act of 2024" was proposed by bipartisan members of the House and Senate, including Raja Krishnamurthy, a senior Democratic member of the House Special Committee on U.S.-China Strategic Competition.

The South China Morning Post reported that the bill stipulates that the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy will evaluate the independence of WADA. At the same time, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy will be given permanent power to stop providing voluntary donations to the agency if it is found that the agency lacks independence.

The report also stated that if the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy concludes that WADA has engaged in misconduct, the bill will also push the White House department to promote the United States to obtain representation in WADA, including a seat on its executive committee. U.S. lawmakers declared that the ultimate goal of the bill is to authorize U.S. agencies to "use all available tools" to ensure that WADA has a "credible and independent governance model."

The South China Morning Post mentioned that the bill introduced by US lawmakers on Tuesday was the latest move in the discussion surrounding the doping incident involving athletes, in which "China has always been the scapegoat."

In response to this matter, Reuters reported that Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, refuted the bill, saying that the United States should not interfere in the global anti-doping management system.

"The United States' continued promotion of this non-existent case and threats against international organizations are aimed at disparaging outstanding Chinese athletes and preventing them from participating in the Paris Olympics," said an embassy spokesman.

According to previous media reports, in April this year, several Western media claimed that several Chinese swimmers were found to be positive for the doping drug trimetazidine in 2021 but were not punished. WADA immediately responded that the China Anti-Doping Center promptly reported the result after the incident and concluded that the positive result was caused by hotel food contamination based on the investigation. WADA recognized this conclusion after a detailed review, so the relevant reports were "misleading and potentially defamatory."

At the same time, the preliminary report of the independent investigation released by Swiss independent prosecutor Eric Cordier on July 9 showed that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) did not show favoritism or mishandling in the investigation of Chinese swimmers who tested positive due to contamination.

In addition, it is worth noting that in addition to the above-mentioned incidents of multiple athletes testing positive due to contamination, in the process of introducing the above-mentioned bill, a US senator mentioned the New York Times's claim on July 30 local time that it had discovered new doping controversies among Chinese athletes. In the report, the New York Times claimed that "two sources with direct knowledge of the incident revealed that two Chinese swimmers tested positive for doping in 2022, but at the end of last year, China ruled out the suspicion of their use of doping and attributed the positive test results to food contamination." Since then, the New York Times article has spent a lot of time questioning China's claims, suggesting that Chinese swimmers may have taken doping.

In response to this matter, WADA issued a statement later that day to clarify the facts, saying that it "thoroughly reviewed these cases with due skepticism in early 2024 and concluded that there was no evidence to question that contaminated meat was the source of the positive tests, and therefore decided not to appeal."

"The politicization of Chinese swimming continues, as evidenced by the latest attempts by the US media to imply that WADA and other anti-doping agencies have engaged in misconduct," the statement read. The South China Morning Post reported that it is worth noting that the statement also mentioned that several recent cases of contamination in the United States were also accepted without punishment.

According to Xinhua News Agency, regarding the doping incident, on July 27, after the women's 100-meter butterfly preliminaries at the Paris Olympics, foreign reporters again asked Zhang Yufei related questions in the mixed interview area, and Zhang Yufei chose to respond positively.

"FINA has investigated our Chinese athletes and the entire incident many times, and we have also undergone many anti-doping tests. In the two months before the Paris Olympics, each of us was probably tested 20 to 30 times, an average of 3 to 4 times a week." Zhang Yufei said that whether it is Chinese athletes or foreign athletes, no one wants to have so many years of hard work ruined by doping, and the Chinese government will not allow us to use doping. That incident was food contamination.