Chinese doping | WADA did not inform its investigators of positive tests

In mid-2020, the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) investigation unit sent management a report containing a stern warning based on an interview with a doctor who had worked at China’s Sports Ministry.

According to this doctor, China had been running a doping program for decades. If this came true, it would be a nightmare for the Olympic movement, still shaken by the Russian doping scandal.

The information was not recent (the doctor defected in 2017), but was precise. She said the Chinese athletes were cheating by, among other things, taking undetectable amounts of a little-known heart medication, trimetazidine, or TMZ, which increases strength, endurance and recovery.

The decision to notify WADA leadership was unusual; the unit placed China on a list of countries under special surveillance, taking into account the doctor’s testimony, deemed credible.

The report proved prescient: seven months after it was delivered to WADA management, 23 elite Chinese swimmers tested positive for TMZ at a national competition in China.

But when WADA learned of these positive tests, its leaders did not act. Instead, they kept the investigative unit away, not informing its investigators and analysts that the swimmers had tested positive, thus ensuring that the case would not be investigated further.

The decision to sideline its own investigators raises new questions about WADA’s response to multiple incidences of possible doping involving Chinese athletes.

It also raises doubts about its credibility and its capacity to reform itself after the revelation in 2015 that it had failed to curb the Russian state’s doping program, which operated undetected for years.

In China’s case, WADA’s top lawyers – including Julien Sieveking, its general counsel, and outside counsel Ross Wenzel, now general counsel – secretly cleared the 23 swimmers of any wrongdoing.

This decision, revealed in April by the New York Times and German broadcaster ARD, allowed the swimmers to continue competing without further investigation or sanction, even though WADA scientists, who work separately from the investigative unit, doubted China’s explanation.

Contamination in the kitchen

The Chinese claimed that swimmers had unwittingly absorbed traces of TMZ from food served by a kitchen during a competition held in preparation for the Tokyo Olympics. The Chinese could never explain how the drugs ended up in the kitchen.

Some of the swimmers who tested positive went on to win medals at the 2021 and 2024 Summer Games, including four gold medals. One of the swimmers in this group, Zhang Yufei, won six medals at the Paris 2024 Games, more than any other athlete who participated in this competition.

This article is based on interviews with current and former senior anti-doping officials, emails and review of internal WADA documents. These people all spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation by the agency.

WADA admitted in a statement that it had not informed its investigation unit of the Chinese swimmers’ positive TMZ tests. The agency justifies its decision by arguing that a “thorough legal and scientific review of the facts, including by external legal counsel”, had established “no basis calling into question the accidental explanation of contamination” offered by the Chinese.

“There was therefore no reason to submit the case […] at this stage” to the investigative unit, WADA said.

But according to many anti-doping experts, WADA should never have been satisfied with China’s explanation regarding the swimmers’ positive tests, taking into account the information in the investigation report and the decision of the doping unit. investigation to place China on a watch list for precisely this type of infraction.

WADA has been under intense scrutiny since the Times revealed how Chinese swimmers have repeatedly tested positive for various banned substances, without being suspended pending a full investigation, which is the norm when a positive test occurs.

The White House is blocking U.S. funding for WADA and demanding that it conduct a full audit of its activities – an issue that WADA addressed on December 4 during a meeting of its senior officials in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Members of both parties in Congress have criticized WADA for failing to enforce rules in global sports and threatened to cut its future funding.

The Justice Department and the FBI have opened an investigation into how anti-doping authorities and sports officials allowed Chinese swimmers to evade testing. According to a person familiar with the matter, WADA recently revealed to its board of directors that the US justice system had demanded all records in its possession relating to the positive Chinese tests, including the decision by Chinese anti-doping authorities not to take action. disciplinary measures against swimmers.

But WADA told its board of directors that it refused to produce the documents because it would set a dangerous precedent.

National Doping Program

The allegations of the Chinese doctor, D^re Xue Yinxian, surfaced in April 2017 when German broadcaster ARD aired an interview in which she claimed that 10,000 Chinese athletes, some as young as 11, had been doped as part of a clandestine program.

In response to these allegations, the WADA Investigative Unit opened an investigation and questioned Dr.^re Xue.

The unit has been limited in its approach because it is extremely difficult for foreign investigators to operate freely in China.

But WADA, with the help of the International Olympic Committee, retested previous urine samples provided by Chinese athletes during the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics. Those tests all came back negative.

In the absence of other evidence to support the D’s assertions^re Xue, the investigation has stalled. Officials at the investigative unit were nevertheless concerned enough to include the doctor’s account in the report submitted to the WADA executive committee in mid-2020, concluding that if new information or evidence emerged, they would would reopen the case.

The decision to send the investigation report to senior agency officials was unusual for the unit, as it rarely received such specific information from an individual about a world power.

But interviews and documents show that even as warning signs mounted, WADA ignored the intelligence provided by the investigative unit when it came to China.

In fact, the investigation unit only learned of the positive tests after the Chinese swimming team’s triumphant return from the Tokyo Olympics in the summer of 2021 and after being alerted by another anti-doping agency.

This article was published in the New York Times.

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