In response to the recent uproar about the positive doping test of 23 Chinese swimmers in 2021, on the evening of April 22, Beijing time (11 a.m. local time in Canada), WADA (World Anti-Doping Organization) held an online meeting on this matter.
Wada现任主席Witold Banka
Journalists from the United States, Australia, Japan, South Korea, India, Brazil, France and other regions took turns asking a variety of pointed questions, which was more than 40 minutes longer than scheduled.
Wada has always insisted that all procedures are legal for the investigation of Chinese athletes' doping positivity in 2021. There is no evidence to refute that the collective positive of athletes is not a mistake. Some of the reports and comments have ulterior motives.
Concern 1: How to support mistaken views
Wada's General Counsel emphasized that WADA had collected evidence and made a multifaceted scientific conclusion based solely on the information available. It is true that no source of contamination was found, but 23 athletes, from different coaches and different regions, were found to be positive in the same hotel, and trimetazidine was found in the kitchen and sewer of the hotel.
法律总顾问Ross Wenzel
Twenty-three athletes had extremely low levels and had both negative and positive results in multiple tests over several days.
Trimetazidine drug experts believe that very low levels of the drug do not help with athletic performance.
In addition, 10 athletes in the United States also tested positive for doping in 2014, and WADA also recognized the results of the investigation into food contamination and did not disclose it to the public.
Concern 2: Why positive events are not disclosed
Ross Wenzel, Wada's general counsel, explained that the investigation determined that the athlete had not made a mistake. Athletes' names will not be disclosed unless there is a public violation of anti-doping treaties. Athletes who don't make mistakes deserve privacy.
German media announced that Zhang Yufei was also among the 23 people
Wada also pursues information breaches.
Focus 3 Valieva also said that she was mistakenly convinced, why she was banned
In December 2021, Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva, also known as K-Bao, was found to have used trimetazidine in a competition. Subsequently, after appeal, he participated in the Beijing Winter Olympics.
But at the beginning of this year, the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld WADA's complaint and made a decision to ban K Bao for four years and deprive him of his Olympic results.
K Bao also said that he had mistakenly taken his grandfather's heart medicine.
WADA explained that K Bao changed his confession of the source of trimetazidine many times, from his grandfather's water cup to eating strawberry cake, and he could not prove the specific source.