The House Select Committee on China has asked the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate reports that Chinese authorities covered up positive doping tests for nearly half of their swimming team at the last Olympics and that global anti-doping regulators failed to take action.
In a letter sent late Tuesday, the commission urged authorities to take advantage of a law passed in 2020 in the wake of another doping scandal involving Russia. This law gives the Department of Justice the power to criminally prosecute anyone who aids in the doping of athletes in international competitions. Whether the crime occurred on U.S. soil.
“This scandal raises serious legal, ethical and competitive concerns and constitutes a broader state-directed strategy by the People’s Republic of China to compete unfairly in the Olympics, as Russia has previously done. That’s a possibility,” said Rep. John, the panel’s chair. Moolener, R-Mich., and his Democratic colleague, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, said in a letter to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray.
The letter comes just two months before the 2024 Games, with the Department of Justice urging increased oversight of China’s athletic programs and the World Anti-Doping Agency, the organization that polices the use of banned performance-enhancing drugs. and could put further political pressure on the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Summer Games held in Paris.
The New York Times reported last month that 23 top Chinese swimmers tested positive for the same powerful drug in the months before the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, but Chinese authorities secretly suspected they were cheating. He was allowed to compete because the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) did not take action.
Swimmers won medals in five events at the 2021 Games, including three gold medals. Some swimmers are the favorites to win medals at the Paris Olympics in July.
The Times reported that the FBI had learned of the positive tests over the past year and that federal investigators had taken steps to investigate the incident. China has argued that the substance that caused the swimmers’ positive tests came from contaminated food, but some experts consider that explanation unlikely or unlikely.
The letter came four days after the House committee met to push back against claims that anti-doping agencies had turned a blind eye after learning of the positive doping tests. WADA officials again defended their decision not to sanction the Chinese swimmers, and WADA’s president attacked American athletes, saying 90 percent of them were not even competing according to the rules.
The bipartisan nature of the letter reflects a broader response in Washington about the growing threat posed by China on a variety of issues, as well as specific concerns among U.S. athletes and coaches about what they see as a pattern of doping by Chinese athletes. It reflected a consensus.
“It is essential to assess whether these doping allegations are state-sponsored, which may require further diplomatic action by the United States and the international community,” Moolenaar and Krishnamoorthi said in the letter.
In a separate letter to the International Olympic Committee, the House of Commons committee called for an independent investigation into how the positive test was handled, saying: “How the IOC responds to this scandal will affect this summer’s Olympics and the world’s “This will directly impact the promise of fair play that unites athletes.”
