New revelations from the ARD Doping Editorial Team on the China file WADA's latest Chinese leniency
Once again severe worldwide criticism of the supreme guardians in the fight against doping. Suspicions of preferential treatment for Chinese athletes after positive doping tests.
The situation in the international anti-doping fight continues to escalate during the Olympic Games. More and more incidents are coming to light which prove the lenient way the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has treated Chinese athletes who have tested positive.
The latest example to emerge this week concerns two swimmers who were ultimately acquitted by the Chinese Anti-Doping Agency (CHINADA), in a decision accepted by WADA, after failing tests for the anabolic steroid methandienone. Allegedly, they had also been victims of contamination.
WADA expert has doubts about contamination explanation
The ARD Doping Editorial Team has information that even an expert consulted by WADA had serious doubts about the contamination excuse put forward by the Chinese. Involved in the latest case is the world record relay swimmer Tang Muhan, who won gold in the 4x200 metre freestyle in Tokyo, but then disappeared from the public eye for a year in 2022, much to the concern of her fans, without the reasons being made public. This Thursday in Paris, she will be competing at the Olympics again.
Also affected is her colleague He Junyi, with whom she claims to have eaten burgers in the Beijing restaurant, Blue Frog. After a months-long Chinese investigation, it is alleged that the imported Australian meat was contaminated with the doping substance. “Methandienone contamination through meat doesn't make much sense,” Dutch doping expert Douwe de Boer told ARD. “There are other steroids that are much cheaper and are used in meat production. Moreover, Australia in particular is a country where meat is strictly controlled. So, I am very surprised that athletes from China were not sanctioned, especially because of a scenario that doesn't make sense at first glance.’
Internationally, there is anger and annoyance because there is a suspicion that Chinese athletes are being treated favourably by WADA. As a rule, the agency pushes for harsh penalties in methandienone cases, even if there are signs of contamination.
Athlete representative: "Furious about WADA's current approach"
When German swimmer Angelina Köhler finished fourth in Paris, 21 hundredths of a second behind one of the Chinese women who tested positive for a doping substance but was cleared by the domestic investigation, Köhler burst into tears in the water. “Of course, stories like that always have a bad flavour,” she said.
“In a veritable salami-slicing tactic, new cases or new possible suspected cases seem to come to light every day. And this approach naturally makes us upset, but also angry about WADA's current behaviour,” complains Kevin Götz, athletes’ representative in the swimming association.
The Athletes' Commission of the US Olympic team released a statement saying it was “once again extremely angry and disheartened” by reports of “further failures in the global anti-doping system”. In the US, bipartisan politicians have spoken out, urging the US to withhold its subsidies to WADA until the agency introduces reforms.
A closer look at the latest Chinese doping cases resembles a pattern: the CHINADA regularly appears to be reliably busy behind the scenes exonerating Chinese athletes after positive samples.
WADA had evidence of trimetazidine doping in China
WADA had evidence of trimetazidine doping in China In 2021, 23 swimmers were caught with the banned heart medication trimetazidine, and CHINADA investigated for months with the help of state intelligence agencies. And the result was nothing short of miraculous: residues of the drug were allegedly found in a kitchen in the hotel where the swimmers had supposedly stayed and eaten. Even in the drain, and this at a time of the coronavirus pandemic when strict cleaning and disinfection procedures was practised daily throughout hotels in China. No source was found, and no serious evidence was presented. But WADA accepted this without further investigation.
However, ARD can now reveal that its investigative department had been aware of findings for years that explicitly confirmed the possibility of micro-doping with trimetazidine in China. After an ARD documentary in 2017, the investigators intensively questioned a Chinese key witness in the documentary, the doctor Xue Yinxian, who had fled to Germany. In May 2020, the head of the department, former LKA police officer Günter Younger, told his Board in a report distributed before a meeting that “Dr Xue was considered a credible witness, even if she did not personally witness the doping.” And he added: “Some of the allegations related to allegedly undetectable quantities of banned substances, namely trimetazidine, stanozolol and growth hormones.”
This verdict has never been mentioned in recent weeks as Younger has repeatedly dismissed concerns about deliberate use of trimetazidine. There was also a similar pattern of behaviour by CHINADA in 2023 in a case that has hardly been noticed by the public. Chinese marathon runner Xin Zhang - like the two Chinese swimmers whose case has now been publicised - tested positive for the same steroid methandienone. She had allegedly trained with a partner, both of whom had the same bottles with them, in which they claimed to have dissolved their similar-looking powders. The runner who tested positive then claims to have accidentally drunk from her colleague's bottle, the contents of which contained the illegal doping agent.
The Athletics Integrity Unit, the investigative unit of World Athletics, asked CHINADA for support. CHINADA obtained statements that could have exonerated the suspected doper: Her running partner allegedly confessed to buying the doping substance and is even said to have provided screenshots with proof of purchase for doping substances. However, they produced no proof of the purchase of methandienone. The AIU did not believe the story told by CHINADA and banned the Chinese woman for three years.
Swimmer orders testing of meat samples
Swimmer has meat samples tested And now the latest case to come to light. On November 3, 2022, samples numbered 6485062 and 6485069 were reported positive for the anabolic agent methandienone by the anti-doping laboratory in Beijing. They were assigned to top Chinese swimmers Tang Muhan and Junyi He. He is particularly unlucky and lucky at the same time: tested positive twice within two years, but always a victim of contamination - even with different doping substances. He was one of the 23 swimmers who tested positive for trimetazidine. After the methandienone sample, he was even prepared to accept a ban without a further hearing, according to ARD information.
Allegedly, in addition to the positive tests of the two swimmers, other Chinese athletes from other sports had also tested positive for the same anabolic steroid. Once again, CHINADA set out to investigate with the help of intelligence agencies. They allegedly determined that eating a burger in the Beijing restaurant Blue Frog alone could be the cause of the swimmers' positive tests.
According to CHINADA, several hundred samples of meat were purchased on a large scale at markets and shops in a dozen cities, including by emissaries of the Olympic swimmer in question, Tang Muhan. Analysis of the samples in the laboratory allegedly revealed minimal amounts of methandienone in meat from New Zealand and Australia.
However, food controls in these countries are very strict and the use of steroids is prohibited. In addition, over 80 per cent of Chinese imported meat actually comes from completely different countries where the risk of steroid contamination is much greater - from South America. And: there have been no cases of methandienone doping in either New Zealand or Australia.
Investigators found no contaminated meat in restaurant
However, the investigators were unable to find contaminated meat in the Blue Frog restaurant in Beijing, of all places, where the athletes claim to have eaten. This was allegedly because the shop does not source its burger ingredients from an Australian importer as it used to. Despite all the obvious inconsistencies: Once again, WADA accepted the theory of innocence and rubber-stamped the athletes' acquittal. As the ARD doping editorial team has since learnt, even a scientist commissioned by WADA did not believe the theory of meat contamination with the doping substance methandienone.
Anti-doping experts such as Dutchman de Boer are surprised that WADA did not follow the usual protocol in cases of suspected contamination: “I am not aware of any warning from WADA that methandienone is being misused in meat production. I would expect WADA to issue a warning - assuming that the Chinese have very reliable evidence.’”
No public suspensions There are other peculiarities of the case that are difficult to reconcile with the WADA protocol. For example, although the swimmers were both provisionally suspended until their acquittal - unlike the 23 trimetazidine swimmers - alleged suspensions were never made public, contrary to normal procedures.
The Chinese online news site ‘163’, for example, features an article on the disappearance of Olympic champion Tang Muhan from the public sphere. "After the 2022 World Swimming Championships in Budapest, Tang Muhan never appeared again until today," the article stated in mid-August 2023, "and Tang Muhan has stopped updating social media in the past 10 months". She has “disappeared”.’
Tang Muhan starts in 4x200 m freestyle relay
The article speculates that she may have been "found to have doping problems and has been banned". Tang Muhan is thought to have been preparing behind the scenes for the Olympics in Paris during this time. There, on Thursday, she will attempt to repeat her Olympic victory from Tokyo 2021 with her team-mates in the 4 x 200 m freestyle relay.