Two of America's most decorated Olympic swimmers plan to ask Congress on Tuesday to hold international anti-doping agencies accountable for failing to properly crack down on allegations of cheating by top Chinese athletes.
Michael Phelps, winner of 23 Olympic gold medals, and Allison Schmidt, winner of four Olympic gold medals, called on Congress to push for reform of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in testimony scheduled to be presented to a House subcommittee on Tuesday night. They said the lack of transparency about whether Chinese swimmers used banned substances is deeply unfair to athletes competing in next month's Summer Olympics in Paris.
The hearing came two months after The New York Times reported that China's anti-doping agency and the World Anti-Doping Agency declined to take disciplinary action against 23 top Chinese swimmers who tested positive for banned substances in early 2021, clearing the way for them to compete in this summer's Olympics in Tokyo.
Chinese officials said the positive tests were the result of the athletes being unknowingly contaminated and contained traces of banned substances, a finding accepted by WADA but questioned by many anti-doping experts.
Schmidt was a member of the U.S. 4×200-meter freestyle relay team that came second to China at the Tokyo Olympics, one of five events in which Chinese swimmers who tested positive for banned substances just months ago won medals, including three golds.
“We raced hard,” Schmidt wrote of the U.S. team in testimony to the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. “We practiced hard. We followed every protocol. We respect their performance and accept our loss.”
She added: “I look back with disbelief, knowing that unsuspended athletes participated in the Chinese relay. We may never know the truth, and it may haunt many of us for years to come.”
An investigation into WADA's handling of the Chinese swimmer's positive test has deepened the crisis ahead of this summer's Olympics.
Some American athletes competing in Paris, including two-time Olympic gold medalist Lilly King, have said they aren't convinced they will be able to compete on a level playing field. Phelps, who, like Schmidt, is retired from competitive swimming, called WADA “an organization that has consistently demonstrated its inability or unwillingness to enforce its policies consistently around the world” in planned remarks on Tuesday.
The United States provides more funding to the agency than any other country, including more than $3.6 million this year.
Travis Tygart, the head of the United States Anti-Doping Agency and an outspoken critic of WADA, suggested in a speech to a House subcommittee that the United States should attach conditions to its funding to the agency.
To prevent what happened to the Chinese athletes from happening again, he urged WADA to set up an independent panel to investigate cases where athletes test positive but countries refuse to take disciplinary action. Under current rules, positive tests are made public even if no disciplinary action is taken.
In the case of Chinese swimmers ahead of the 2021 Olympics, the positive tests were not made public, the athletes were not punished and they competed in the Olympics without their rivals knowing about their questionable use of banned substances.
Tygart also plans to call on WADA to release its full record of positive test cases in China and to conduct an audit of the agency.
Tygart said that failing to address what he called the “WADA horror show” “risks undermining the dreams of tens of millions of young people around the world who rely on a global anti-doping system to ensure they can compete cleanly, safely and on a fair playing field, rather than the odds being stacked against them in favour of a select few athletes selected by WADA.”
The agency has stood firm in its response to the positive tests, appointing a former Swiss prosecutor to investigate whether there was any cheating or favouritism towards China, but U.S. authorities, other countries' anti-doping agencies and athletes have questioned whether the investigation will truly be independent. The findings are due to be released before the Olympics.
According to the subcommittee, WADA president Witold Banka was invited to testify at the House hearing but declined to appear.
The Times reported in April that China's anti-doping authorities had argued the athletes should not be punished because traces of the drug they tested positive for – a prescription heart drug known as trimetazidine, or TMZ – were found in the kitchens of the hotels where they were staying to compete in tournaments in late 2020 and early 2021.
Chinese authorities concluded that the positive tests after the tournament were the result of athletes unknowingly consuming food contaminated by TMZ, but it is unclear how the drug, sold in pill form, got into the diets of so many athletes.
China kept the positive tests secret, despite rules that contamination cases must be made public even if the athletes have not wronged them. WADA, which acts as a backstop if countries fail to follow the rules, accepted the Chinese authorities' explanation and did not conduct an on-site investigation or seek to discipline the athletes.
The Times' revelations about the positive tests and WADA's response have raised questions around the world about the agency tasked with keeping the Olympics clean.
The loudest protests have come from the United States, where swimming is facing growing competition from China, where the Biden administration's top drug official has called for more accountability and transparency from WADA, lawmakers have asked the FBI to investigate the matter and lawmakers are considering whether to continue funding WADA.
In his prepared remarks, Schmidt described how U.S. athletes go to great lengths to ensure they comply with anti-doping rules, from having to urinate in front of drug testers to avoiding even simple things like topical cream for dry skin if he doesn't know the ingredients.
“I once had a drug tester sit next to me unannounced during a college history exam,” Schmidt said.
Phelps first testified before Congress about the subject in 2017, following a doping scandal in which former Russian officials said the country ran a state-sponsored doping program to produce Olympic stars. In his testimony at Tuesday's hearing, Phelps said he found it “incredible” that he was bringing up the issue again seven years later.
“It is clear that WADA's attempts to reform have fallen short and that deep-rooted systemic problems remain that have proven detrimental to the integrity of international sport and athletes' rights to compete fairly,” Phelps said.
