Chinese and Olympic flags wave during the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. The World Anti-Doping Agency has cleared 23 Chinese swimmers of doping charges, allowing them to compete in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics despite testing positive for banned substances.
Petr David Josek/AP
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Petr David Josek/AP
The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into a sports doping scandal involving about 20 top Chinese swimmers.
The Justice Department, which rarely comments on ongoing investigations, said in a statement to NPR that “the FBI is neither confirming nor denying the existence of an investigation,” but two international sports organizations confirmed to NPR that criminal investigations are ongoing.
In May, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers called for an investigation, saying in a statement that “it is urgent to assess whether these doping allegations were state-sponsored.”
One focus of the investigation appears to be the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which has been investigating after several top Chinese swimmers repeatedly tested positive for two banned substances over the years, but the results were kept secret and the athletes were allowed to compete in the 2021 Tokyo Summer Olympics.
Chinese swimmers compete in Paris
Of these, 11 Chinese athletes will make it onto the Chinese national team and are expected to go head-to-head with American athletes again at the Paris Olympics.
World Aquatics, the international governing body for competitive swimming, said in a statement to NPR that executive director Brent Nowicki had received a subpoena “from the U.S. government” to testify in the case. “He is seeking to schedule a meeting with the government which will likely avoid the need to testify before a grand jury,” the World Aquatics statement said.
WADA also issued a statement saying it had handled drug testing in China properly and was “disappointed” with the investigation.
WADA, based in Montreal, Canada, accused US authorities of exceeding their authority in the case. “The United States is seeking to exercise extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction over a participant in the international anti-doping system,” a WADA statement said.
News of the positive test results was first made public in April this year.
The revelations sparked international condemnation of WADA, Chinese authorities and their decision to keep the doping case secret.
“People are allowed anything.”
WADA, meanwhile, said it had chosen to accept the Chinese government’s explanation that repeated positive tests for performance-enhancing drugs by top swimmers were the result of accidental contamination.
U.S. drug-testing experts and many American athletes reject that explanation.
Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps testified before a U.S. House of Representatives committee last month, calling for major reforms to the international system for catching athletes who cheat by using drugs. “Right now people are getting away with anything and everything,” Phelps said. “How is that possible? It just doesn’t make sense.”
Travis Tygart, director of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which monitors U.S. athletes and punishes cheating, testified that WADA has long failed to adequately punish Chinese and Russian sports teams for their regular use of performance-enhancing drugs.
“Russia and China are too big to fail” [WADA’s] “Unfortunately, they’re seeing different rules and being subject to different rules than the rest of the world,” Tygart said.
