Beijing yesterday called reports about 23 Chinese swimmers testing positive for a banned substance ahead of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 "fake news."
The sport was rocked at the weekend by revelations that the swimmers tested positive for trimetazidine - a prescription heart drug that is banned in athletes because it can enhance performance - before the Games three years ago.
The swimmers were allowed to compete in Tokyo after world governing bodies accepted China's findings that they had ingested it unwittingly from food during a competition in late 2020 and early 2021.
Several went on to win medals, including gold, and many are in line to compete at the Paris Olympics this summer.
China's foreign ministry yesterday hit back at the widespread reports, which first emerged in the New York Times and German broadcaster ARD and cited a review of confidential documents and emails.
"The relevant reports are fake news," said ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin.
The World Anti-Doping Agency has said there was "a lack of any credible evidence" to challenge China's version of events.
However, the United States Anti-Doping Agency called news of the failed tests "crushing" and has blasted Wada's response as "a devastating stab in the back of clean athletes."
Wang said China's anti-doping center conducted an "in-depth and detailed" probe, which found the athletes had ingested contaminated drugs "without their knowledge."
"The Chinese swimmers involved were neither at fault nor guilty of negligence, and their behavior did not constitute a doping violation," he told a press conference.
An Australian coach who works with the Chinese Swimming Association also rejected claims of systemic state-run doping, saying it is "so far from anything I have seen."
Denis Cotterell, who has coached drug-tainted Chinese swimmer Sun Yang, told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper he disputed "any suggestion of anything orchestrated."
"Am I confident that it's not dastardly? Not for one minute [do I believe that]. I wouldn't be here [if it was]," Cotterell told the newspaper by phone from the pool deck of the Chinese Olympic trials in Shenzhen.
He added: "I see what [the swimmers] go through ... I know the facts and I am comfortable. The suggestion that it's systemic is so far from anything I have seen here the whole time."
Wang Wenbin
Denis Cotterell
