Each time a suspicion of doping arises in an Olympics, consideration can shift rapidly from the athletes who received gold, silver and bronze medals to those who missed out.
On Saturday, The New York Occasions revealed an investigation into an unreported case by which 23 prime Chinese language swimmers examined optimistic for a strong banned drug in 2021, solely months earlier than the Tokyo Olympics. The swimmers — who made up about half of the Chinese language swimming staff at these Video games — had been cleared by China’s antidoping authorities and the World Anti-Doping Company and allowed to compete.
The episode has not solely alarmed consultants within the antidoping group, but in addition raised different questions on athletes who examined optimistic, and what comes subsequent: Which athletes? Which races?
And what in regards to the medals they received in them?
For now, the reply — each for the Chinese language athletes and the handfuls of swimmers who completed behind them, on and off the medals stand — is that nothing has modified.
By evaluating the names of the 23 swimmers who examined optimistic with outcomes from the Video games, The Occasions recognized 5 occasions by which Chinese language swimmers who had examined optimistic for a banned substance received medals:
Ladies’s 100-meter butterfly
The third day of the Tokyo Video games opened with the primary of 4 medals for Zhang Yufei, a silver. Torri Huske of the US was fourth, lacking out on the primary Olympic medal of her profession by one-hundredth of a second.
Ladies’s 200-meter butterfly
Three days later, Zhang claimed her second medal — and first gold — with an Olympic-record time. The People Regan Smith and Hali Flickinger touched the wall greater than a second behind to assert silver and bronze.
Ladies’s 200-meter freestyle relay
Simply over an hour after profitable a person gold, Zhang helped China win a relay gold. China’s time, a world file, was practically half a second sooner than that of the US staff. The People additionally broke the earlier world file however went residence with the silver.
Males’s 200-meter particular person medley
Wang Shun grew to become solely the second Chinese language man to win a person swimming gold.
Combined 4×100-meter medley relay
Britain set a world file in profitable the combined occasion, which was being held on the Olympics for the primary time. However China’s staff edged Australia to win the silver, delivering Zhang’s fourth and remaining medal of the Tokyo Video games.
Chinese language antidoping officers and the World Anti-Doping Company, the worldwide authority that oversees nationwide drug-testing applications, defended their actions in dealing with the case of the pre-Olympic doping positives in statements to The Occasions this week.
China mentioned it had acknowledged the optimistic exams and notified WADA. However in a report created by China’s antidoping company and quietly submitted weeks earlier than the Olympics, the Chinese language authorities mentioned their investigators concluded that the swimmers had ingested the banned substance unwittingly and in tiny quantities, and that no motion was warranted.
WADA, citing “a scarcity of any credible proof” to problem China’s model of occasions, defended its resolution to not take additional motion. It referred to as any criticism unsubstantiated, though it took a far more durable line in a case involving a Russian determine skater solely months later.
In that case, Russia was ultimately stripped of a staff gold medal, and a number of international locations have appeals, looking for to improve their very own finishes.
On Friday, the Worldwide Olympic Committee declined to touch upon the optimistic exams, saying solely that “anti-doping issues have been made unbiased from the I.O.C.,” and referring inquiries to WADA.
However with the antidoping company adamant that it acted accurately and inside its guidelines, there is no such thing as a indication that any of the outcomes of races shall be affected, or any the medals reallocated.
