Daniel González Delgadillo
Sent
La Jornada Newspaper
Thursday June 20, 2024, p. a10
Beijing. China assured yesterday that it has a zero-tolerance attitude towards doping, after revealing the official list of athletes who will compete in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, and in which 11 of the swimming team athletes, including champions Zhang Yufei and Shun Wang face these types of accusations, which were verified by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
China is committed to protecting the physical and mental well-being of our athletes, ensuring fair competition in sports and contributing to the unified global anti-doping campaign, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a press conference.
Lin highlighted that the authorities of the Asian giant strictly respect the World Anti-Doping Code, which guarantees fair competition in sport, according to the newspaper. The Global Times.
A total of 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics for trimetazidine, a medication used for the heart and banned for 10 years for its benefits on blood circulation, the American newspaper revealed. New York Times and the German channel ARD a few weeks ago.
The swimmers were not sanctioned and competed after WADA accepted the Chinese government’s argument that the case was caused by food contamination at very low levels, specifically meat consumption.
Travis Tygart, head of the United States Anti-Doping Agency, accused of a potential cover-up over the cases. He criticized that Chinese and global anti-doping associations had until now secretly swept these positives under the rug.
Several of the competitors won medals in Tokyo, including gold, so 11 were included in the Olympic team for the Paris event, according to the list published by sports authorities.
Those involved include Yufei, who won gold in the women’s 200-meter butterfly and 200-meter freestyle; Wang, gold medalist in the men’s 200-meter individual medley; Yang Junxuan, first place in the 4×200 freestyle and silver in the 4×100, and Qin Haiyang, world champion in the 50, 100 and 200 meters breaststroke in 2023.
Last week, WADA confirmed a story of Times that three of the 23 Chinese athletes had also tested positive for clenbuterol and are among the delegation that will participate in Paris, although their names were not revealed.
However, the anti-doping agency clarified that traces of this drug had been ingested through contamination of meat and described the newspaper’s publication as sensationalist and inaccurate.
This case comes after Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva, who claimed to have been contaminated with trimetazidine before the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, was banned from participating.
2024-06-20 10:45:35
#Heading #Paris #tolerance #doping #China
