China is sending 11 swimmers embroiled in a doping scandal to the Paris 2024 Olympics.
In a 31-member swimming roster released on Tuesday, the Chinese Swimming Association named nearly a dozen swimmers who tested positive for the banned heart drug trimetazidine in 2021.
Although the tests were conducted three years ago, the results were only revealed this year, sparking international outrage against both China and the World Anti-Doping Agency. WADA said it accepted China's explanation that the 23 swimmers who failed the tests had accidentally eaten food contaminated with a substance called TMZ, the levels of which were found at “very low levels”.
WADA privately cleared the swimmers of wrongdoing and allowed them to compete at Tokyo 2021 – where two of them won Olympic gold medals.
On Tuesday, eleven of the 23 athletes were included in the Chinese team participating in next month's Olympic Games.
These include Zhang Yufei, who won gold in the women's 200m butterfly and 200m freestyle relay, and Wang Xun, who won gold in the men's 200m individual medley.
Chinese officials have strongly denied the doping allegations, calling them “false”, “misleading” and “defamatory”.
The incident could also impact swimming events at Paris 2024, with critics accusing WADA of double standards. The doping agency cleared Chinese swimmers after banning Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva, who claimed to have been contaminated by TMZ ahead of the Beijing 2022 Winter Games.
When the positive tests emerged in China, Travis Tygart, CEO of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, or USADA, called the news “devastating.” He said the world and Chinese anti-doping associations had “kept these positives secret until now.”
Gold medal-winning American swimmer Katie Ledecky said last month that confidence in the anti-doping system was at an “all-time low” before Paris. And next week, two other American swimming legends, Michael Phelps and Allison Schmitt, are scheduled to testify at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on anti-doping measures on Capitol Hill.
“WADA's track record is questionable,” committee chairmen Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and Morgan Griffith, R-Va., said in a joint statement. “This hearing will give members an opportunity to examine that track record, and ensure that only the best athletes win gold medals.”
WADA has launched an independent review of its handling of the case, although it did so only after the news was leaked to the New York Times. It has also sent a team to China to assess its anti-doping program.
The China Anti-Doping Agency, or ChinaDA, has accused USADA and the Times of making “false allegations and misleading, defamatory reports.”
ChinaDA said its officials found traces of TMZ in the kitchen of the hotel in Shijiazhuang city where swimmers were staying for national competitions, where they tested positive. The results were due to “an isolated mass incident caused by athletes inadvertently consuming food contaminated with TMZ”, and “no fault or negligence” was found on the part of anyone involved.
WADA at the same time issued a series of sharp criticisms reiterating China’s position and calling the coverage “misleading and potentially defamatory.” It said in a statement in April that “the contamination scenario was plausible and there was no solid scientific evidence to challenge it.”
Last week, WADA confirmed a report in The Times that three of the 23 Chinese athletes had also tested positive for clenbuterol, another performance-enhancing drug, between 2016 and 2017.
According to the Times, these three athletes are part of China's team for the Paris Olympics. WADA has not confirmed their names.
The doping agency said some amount of the drug was “ingested through meat contamination” and called the Times story “sensationalist and inaccurate.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com