So when seven-time Olympic gold medalist Ledecky speaks about the Chinese doping scandal that surfaced this spring, cast doubt on some of the Tokyo Olympics’ results and hijacked much of the conversation around the sport as the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials begin this weekend in Indianapolis, she’s not just speaking as a swimming legend, an advocate for clean sport and an athlete who has taken hundreds of drug tests in her career.
And, at least on paper, she’s competing for a big piece of history: Ledecky is proud of her silver medal, one of three in her illustrious Olympic career, but an eighth gold medal would tie her for the most ever by a female swimmer and put her behind Michael Phelps (23) and Mark Spitz (nine) among all swimmers.
“Clean play should be at the forefront of the Olympics and it’s just disappointing that three years after this happened we’re in this situation,” Ledecky, 27, said in a recent interview. “It’s tough to accept as an athlete and tough to feel now how it feels as an athlete who’s won an Olympic Games. [silver] “I understand now that medals are hiding behind athletes who have tested positive. Other athletes have been through the same thing and I always understand how they feel.”
In April, The New York Times and German public broadcaster ARD reported that 23 top Chinese swimmers had tested positive for banned substances before the Tokyo Olympics, but after an investigation the World Anti-Doping Agency had accepted China’s explanation of “environmental” contamination in kitchens where the swimmers’ meals are prepared, and so they were allowed to compete. The positive tests were not made public at the time.
Thirteen of the 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for trimetazidine (TMZ) in January 2021 competed in Tokyo seven months later, four of them winning medals. TMZ is a heart drug that is on the banned substance list because it may increase stamina and speed recovery time.
Among them was Zhang Yufei, then 23 years old. Zhang won the gold medal in the women’s 200-meter butterfly in world-record time, with Americans Regan Smith and Hari Flickinger winning silver and bronze medals, and about an hour later swam the third leg on China’s gold-medal-winning and world-record-setting 4×200 freestyle relay team. Zhang also won silver in the women’s 100-meter butterfly earlier in the meet, missing out on the bronze medal by just one-hundredth of a second to Tori Huske of the United States.
“The WADA investigation into the case has been so thorough that it has not found a basis to challenge China’s explanation of accidental contamination. It has not yet been able to determine whether Zhang and many of his teammates tested positive for the virus,” WADA said in a statement.
WADA considers the matter closed and there has been no public discussion of stripping China of its medals from the Tokyo Olympics or imposing other sanctions, and some of the swimmers in question, including Zhang, are due to compete in next month’s Paris Olympics.
“Obviously, our athletes are thinking about it,” said Shana Ferguson, chief commercial officer for USA Swimming. “…Obviously, our athletes are disappointed on many levels by the realization that they’re not necessarily playing on a level playing field around the world.”
For Ledecky and other Olympic-level swimmers, the frustration and disappointment stems largely from WADA’s apparent departure from standard protocol: Under “strict liability” rules, which hold athletes ultimately responsible for what they put into their bodies, positive tests typically result in provisional suspensions while an investigation is conducted, and those suspensions are made public.
Some have speculated that political and financial considerations may have been at play in the Chinese swimmer’s case: a positive test in January 2021 would have caused uproar in China just over a year before the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
“From an athlete’s perspective, not as an athlete whose medals were affected by this. [of us] “We are disappointed, disheartened and have lost confidence in the WADA system and its response,” Ledecky said. “There are many unanswered questions. … We are subject to frequent drug testing and we all know the rules. There should be strict accountability. If there are positive tests, there should be consequences.”
Stanford women’s swimming coach Greg Meehan, who coached Ledecky from 2016 to 2021 and served as the U.S. women’s coach at the Tokyo Olympics, criticized WADA’s “complete lack of transparency.” In a post on X, he said the case confirms the swimming community’s concerns that doping could become widespread during the pandemic because of the complicated logistics of testing athletes in different countries with different quarantine protocols.
“Most elite athletes compete in one Olympic Games in their prime, maybe two if they’re lucky,” Meehan writes.[T]Dude, you deserve better.”
The silver medal in the 800m freestyle relay was one of two medals won by Ledecky in Tokyo, along with gold medals in the individual 800m freestyle and 1,500m freestyle. Regarded as the greatest female swimmer of all time, she is aiming to compete in four Olympics in Paris, her fourth career Olympics, and still have a chance to overtake and surpass American legend Jenny Thompson, who holds the most Olympic gold medals of all time for a female swimmer, with eight.
Asked about the possibility of being robbed of another gold medal in Tokyo, Ledecky mentioned her relay teammates Allison Schmidt and Brooke Ford, who stood with her on the medal stand as the Chinese national anthem was played that day but retired from competition after the Olympics, and who will likely not have a chance to bounce back like Ledecky in Paris.
“That would have been their only gold medal in Tokyo,” Ledecky said of Schmidt and Ford. “We’re proud of that relay performance. We broke the world record. Allison would have had a second world record.” [of her career]There are a lot of questions that need to be answered.”
In an Instagram post following the news of the Chinese national’s positive test, Schmidt reflected on his drug test after the relay, writing that “it’s sad to see the purity of the sport lost.” [was] Pushed aside for money and politics.”
In American swimming circles, the recent suspension of long-distance swimmer Kenzie McMahon after a positive doping test is seen as evidence that Team USA holds itself to a higher standard than other countries. McMahon, a former NCAA champion and world championship medalist, was suspended for four years by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency last month after testing positive for vadadustat, a drug commonly used to treat anemia in patients with chronic kidney disease, in 2023.
McMahon, 24, said he did not intentionally take drugs but was unable to prove accidental contamination, despite hiring his own investigators to try to solve a mystery he could not explain. Still, his four-year ban was upheld for failing to prove his innocence.
“I’m frustrated. [to see] “The contrast is amazing,” said 12-time Olympic medalist Natalie Coughlin. [Chinese] A swimmer tested positive, it wasn’t made public, it was basically hushed up, and then… [McMahon] “That’s an unacceptable fact.”
