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Olympic swimmers speak out about Chinese doping; and Britain's Adam Peaty says they should be out (apnews.com)

submitted 3 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

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Chinese doping scandal that has hung over these Paris Olympics as the events finished Sunday night.

China won the men’s 4x100-meter medley relay in 3 minutes, 27.46 seconds, with two of the four members on the team listed among 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive ahead of the Tokyo Olympics three years ago. The swimmers were allowed to compete after a Chinese investigation ruled that they consumed food that had been contaminated.

…

The New York Times reported last week that two more Chinese swimmers had tested positive, including one 2024 Olympian, for a banned substance in 2022 but were cleared by Chinese officials to compete.

The World Anti-Doping Agency stood by its decision to clear the 23 swimmers who tested positive for a banned heart medication.

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[-] EtherWhack@lemmy.world 63 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Meanwhile Sha'Carri (US running) was DQ'd previously for having THC in her system. Still trying to wrap my head around how pot can help you run faster.

They weren't concerned about CBD or anything else, just the psychoactive THC.

[-] khannie@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago

In general things that can calm your nerves in the run up to a very stressful sporting event are banned since forever.

I can tell you as someone who used to compete at a way lower level than these folks but still way beyond the average person that nerves have a huge impact on your body and therefore performance so it does make sense.

I'll leave you to infer yourself how the human body responds to extreme stress and how that might affect performance. :)

[-] EtherWhack@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

That would make sense if they were looking for CBD, which is the chemical that causes the relaxing effect of weed, not THC which more or less just gives the "high" feeling. You can easily get CBD from hemp and WADA actually removed it from their ban list in 2019.

There are also plenty of allowed substances that can help you relax, even prescription-only. They would have to ban things like; alcohol (never gonna happen), dramamine (antiemetic), diphenhydramine (antihistamine), gabapentin (anticonvulsant, Rx-only), etc... These, while primarily used for other purposes, all are occasionally used for their sedating effects and to my knowledge are all allowed.

There was also the argument that while yes, it does help with relaxing, it will actually decrease performance on the whole.

[-] khannie@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

I actually think all the stuff you listed could give an unfair advantage depending on the sport.

When I was a kid alcohol was a huge aspect of professional snooker but it got banned. Like they would be having pints while waiting to take their shot. I take diphenhydramine to help me sleep occasionally and I could see that giving a very slight advantage depending on the sport too.

My own sport relied on reflexes being on point so I'm no expert on relaxants. It's definitely a very tricky business.

[-] Cort@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Lol, when I used to go out to bars and play billiards before covid, there was a point between 1.5 and 3 beers where I couldn't miss a shot

[-] zephyreks@lemmy.ml -1 points 2 months ago

THC is illegal in most of the world still. It's like how testing positive for cocaine probably isn't good for your odds.

[-] EtherWhack@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

They don't really mention if it's illegal or not to their reasoning. They only use three parameters for the decision.

source

They argue for points 2 (health risk) and 3 (commonly abused), both of which cigarettes and alcohol fit right in, but are unrestricted.

[-] zephyreks@lemmy.ml -4 points 2 months ago

Why, exactly, do you think THC and cocaine are illegal for recreational consumption in most of the world? Someone decided one day that they really didn't like the way it looks?

[-] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Cultural imperialism and racism, really. The US was the driving force behind the war on drugs, and boy were our drug laws not passed to do anything except oppress inconvenient demographic groups.

[-] palordrolap@kbin.run 46 points 3 months ago

[...] two more Chinese swimmers had tested positive [...] but were cleared by Chinese officials

Ah, the old "we've investigated ourselves and found no wrong-doing"

At least try "we hired an outside agency, totally didn't bribe them, and they found no wrong-doing", or better yet "we totally didn't bribe the independent third party hired by someone else, and they found no wrong-doing".

But I suppose I should be glad it wasn't "we totally didn't aim veiled threats at someone's family and livelihood, etc."

[-] Cyberjin@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago

You forgot "It wasn't us, someone else did it to us"

China blamed Australian beef, which apparently contains "Menthandienone" 🙄

[-] kevindqc@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

Was it?

The contamination was accepted to have come from spice containers in the kitchen of a hotel where some of the Chinese team stayed for a national meet in January 2021

[-] Cyberjin@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago

China’s wild claim after steroids detected in positive 2022 doping test

The bizarre reason China is blaming Australia after two of its star swimmers failed drug tests

Doesn't really matter what they say, they dope & cheat everytime. As the comment above implies they always get away with it because of money.

[+] zephyreks@lemmy.ml -6 points 2 months ago

How? WADA receives more money from the US and Canada than they do from China. France is far closer to the US than it is to China. Chinese consumer spending for foreign imports is in systemic decline. Meanwhile, China has basically failed to get TUEs (WADA-approved doping) for performance-enhancing drugs to treat "medical conditions" like asthma and ADHD. If WADA was in China's pocket, we'd see China get approved for TUEs at will... Instead, we see TUEs granted disproportionately to the countries which fund WADA with the most money.

[-] Cyberjin@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Corruption comes in many ways and forms, but usually it's under the table. In any case, they are being investigated for their actions, as they should

F.B.I. and Justice Department Open Criminal Investigation in Chinese Doping Case

U.S. lawmakers threaten funding for sport doping program over China Olympic scandal

[-] zephyreks@lemmy.ml -3 points 2 months ago

Meanwhile, 3 countries in the top 5 of the medal table are also... coincidentally, the 3 countries that receive 63% of all exemptions for the use of performance-enhancing (or masking agent) drugs to treat medical conditions. Nothing off about that at all.

Noah Lyles is literally bragging that he has (and is presumably medicated for) allergies, asthma, ADHD, ...

Katie Ledecky has POTS, which under WADA's TUE policy is basically a blank cheque for cardiovascular medication.

Simone Biles is diagnosed with ADHD, for which medications improve focus, reaction time, and muscle recovery.

All top athletes, all well-documented as having conditions that coincidentally can be treated using performance-enhancing drugs. It's an absurd level of "coincidence" that you simply don't see in Canada, nevermind elsewhere in the world... all the money we're dumping into WADA just for the US to skip around the rules like they don't matter. Mind you, my claim isn't that they're lying about their conditions... my worry is moreso that the loose rules around TUEs in the US make it so that a medical condition (that happens to require performance-enhancing drugs to medicate) is a key pathway to reaching Olympic-level competition because their conditions enable them to dope like no one else can.

Nevermind that USADA is on the record letting doped athletes continue to compete as a matter of policy, and it's also a matter of policy that USADA does not enforce WADA Code-compliance for most athletes. It's fucking absurd the level of hypocrisy on display from USADA... coming from Canada, where WADA is headquartered and where we've dumped countless millions into the institution, it feels like a slap on the face. The US, who is supposed to be our closest ally, is questioning the work of officials working in Canada, questioning the integrity of an institution based in Canada, and questioning the ability of Canadians to make decisions. Kindly fuck off please.

[-] zephyreks@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 months ago

The funniest part about this is that the people complaining are saying that Pan Zhanle couldn't possibly swim that fast.

Except he did, beating his own world record, and then he swam even faster in the 4x100m medley... And he himself has never tested positive for doping, not even in the contamination case.

I don't question why the countries that disproportionately fund WADA get a disproportionate amount of the TUEs for legal performance-enhancing drugs, nor do I question why those countries also coincidentally are top performers in athletics.

We're going to see this more and more as our misconceptions surrounding Chinese athletic performance start being superceded by the rise in nutrition in China. Chinese teens are taller than they've ever been before as diets approach that of developed countries. Plus, don't forget that China has had thousands of years of geographically-selective copulation (the high plains in Inner Mongolia, the mountains in Tibet, the dry desert in Xinjiang, the humid coastal South)... And it's only recently that we're seeing the results of real genetic mixing amongst that population.

There's two environmental factors to pay attention to as well: China's history of famines (which only ended in the 60s and had happened basically every few decades prior) may have selected for efficient processing of specific foods and China's notoriously factory-oriented meat industry may lead to excess growth hormones in children.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 37 points 3 months ago

If only people were upset about this rather than a "man" winning at women's boxing.

[-] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 months ago

They are upset enough to write an article

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

I wasn't talking about the AP. I was talking about how this has 7 comments despite being up for 2 hours while there are other threads with dozens of people complaining about how a "man" is boxing women at the Olympics.

[-] SGGeorwell@lemmy.world 28 points 3 months ago

China commits fraud up and down its entire economy. Then they give excuses so stupid that they insult everyone’s intelligence. “Oh the athletes’ food was tainted with steroids, whoopsie daisy.” I mean Jesus fuckin Christ. China has earned its reputation for wide-scale fraud. I don’t trust anything they produce.

[-] zephyreks@lemmy.ml 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Sprinter Erriyon Knighton tested positive for a banned substance that an arbitration panel determined came from contaminated meat, a decision that keeps the 200-meter specialist eligible to run at the upcoming U.S. Olympic trials.

Food contamination is a real issue. It helps that everyone tested positive for the exact same substance in basically the exact same concentration, because usually it's better to design your doping protocols tailored to each athlete's body and training. Just intuitively, it's not exactly standard practice to have your entire Olympic-level team shoot up on steroids at the same exact time.

Nevertheless, the pool isn't slow: the US set the 1500m free and 4x100 medley women's records. Meanwhile, WADA has been testing Chinese athletes far more than everyone else.

Edit: just to be clear, I don't think his spread is even unreasonable in context. Phelps swam a 22.93 50m and a 47.51 100m (1.65s pace difference). Pan swam a 21.92 50m and a 46.40 100m (2.56s pace difference). For reference, Dressel did 50m in 21.04 and 100m in 46.96... but while Dressel is basically specialized at training for short stints, Pan also trains for 400m events so his back half is expected to not fall off as hard anyway (not to the level of Michael "my lactic acid doesn't build up" Phelps, though).

[-] miridius@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago

In case anyone isn't aware, all professional athletes at that level dope. Some countries just take it further than others

[-] voluble@lemmy.world -4 points 2 months ago

Theoretical question - would it be possible to get so gassed up that if you peed in the pool you'd make everyone else test positive?

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 3 points 2 months ago

I don't think so. It would probably be enough to kill you. Even if you did put enough in the water to make an impact on the other swimmers in the short time they're in the pool, I'm not sure that it would be absorbed into the hair properly to show up in hair tests.

[-] zephyreks@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 months ago

Not unless you want to die

this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2024

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