After Swimmers Tested Positive, China Blamed Burgers

China has once again blamed tainted food for positive drug tests among its elite swimmers. The New York Times, citing "two people with direct knowledge of the matter," reports that two swimmers, including one competing in the Paris Olympics, were secretly cleared in 2022 after testing positive for the banned steroid metandienone, known as D-Bol. They were provisionally suspended at the time, and Chinese authorities ultimately determined that the swimmers probably unknowingly ingested trace amounts of the steroid when they ate hamburgers at a Beijing restaurant. At least one World Anti-Doping Agency expert found the explanation unconvincing, according to the Times' sources.

WADA confirmed details of the Times' report. The agency said it "reviewed the full case file with considerable skepticism and all due diligence" and there "was no evidence to challenge the contamination scenario presented by the athletes and CHINADA," China's anti-doping agency. Use of D-Bol can be punished with a four-year ban. Earlier this year, it emerged that 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for the banned drug trimetazidine months before the Tokyo Olympics, but Chinese authorities allowed them to compete after determining that contaminated food was to blame. He Junyi, one of the two swimmers who tested positive for D-Bol, was among the 23. He is not part of the Chinese team this year.

Rob Koehler, general director of the athletes' advocacy body Global Athlete, told the AP the report "is another devastating blow to the credibility of both WADA and World Aquatics, and to clean sport." Chip Le Grand at the Sydney Morning Herald says China and WADA's failure to report the positive tests is a move that adds to the distrust. He argues, however, that the steroid is used in beef production, and the amount detected was so small that contamination appears to be the most likely explanation. Still, the Times notes the experts it spoke with could not recall another case where a positive test for metandienone was definitively tied to food contamination. One of the two swimmers, Tang Muhan, is expected to compete in Paris on Thursday with the Chinese 4x200 meter relay team. (More Chinese athletes stories.)