Sally Sara: The World Anti-Doping Agency is under pressure for allowing 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for a banned substance to compete at the Tokyo Olympics. Several of the swimmers won medals in Tokyo, including three gold. The head of the US Anti-Doping Agency has slammed WADA for accepting China's version of events. Rachel Mealey reports.
Channel 9 Commentator: Another gold to China, too good here, Well done China!
Rachel Mealey : The swimming world was awestruck by the women's 4x200 metre relay team in Tokyo.
Channel 9 Commentator 2: Second gold medal of the night for China. Big time victory there.
Rachel Mealey : But that big time victory may have belonged to Great Britain. China's Zhang Yufay was one of 23 swimmers to have tested positive to the performance enhancing drug TMZ earlier that year. The bombshell revelation has only just come to light. Travis Tygart is the chief executive of the US Anti-Doping Agency. He says the proper procedure would have seen all of those swimmers suspended from competition.
Travis Tygart : In our world, the rules are crystal clear. It's strict liability. So if you have a positive test, even if you determine it was some sort of contamination, you have to announce the test, you have to provisionally suspend the athlete, you have to disqualify the results if it's from a competition like it was here. That wasn't done.
Rachel Mealey : China's Anti-Doping Agency says the positive results had been inadvertent. It says swimmers tested positive for extremely low concentration of TMZ after being exposed to the substance through contamination in a hotel kitchen and should not be held responsible. It says the World Anti-Doping Agency, WADA, agreed with it. But Travis Tygart says WADA has questions to answer.
Travis Tygart : Even if they believed it was contamination, which I think it's really difficult to find that this was contamination because these samples also are consistent with the tail end of a mass administration to prepare for competition. But at the end of the day, it's terrible for the anti-doping system. And all WADA had to do when they were handed that report in June is do what the rules require, which is to announce the positives. If they wanted to find it was contamination, then OK, fine that it's contamination, but you still have to announce that, you still have to disqualify the results and don't sweep it under the carpet.
Rachel Mealey : Swimming Australia says it's making inquiries with the sport's global governing body, World Aquatics. Swimming Australia's Chief Executive Rob Woodhouse has released a statement.
Rob Woodhouse : As an organisation we will always advocate for fairness and integrity and we believe that all athletes deserve the right to earn success by their own hard work, effort and dedication. Clean sport is about respect for your competitors. It's about respect for yourself. It's about respect for sport.
Rachel Mealey : Dr Steve Georgakis is from the University of Sydney.
Steve Georgakis : There's a lack, clearly a lack of transparency here. I take heart medicine and I take it through tablets. So they need to tell us how a tablet can end up contaminating a kitchen and how not one or two athletes but 23 athletes became contaminated by this prohibited substance.
Rachel Mealey : He says the scandal could impact the Paris Olympics which begin in July.
Steve Georgakis : Look, we're less than 100 days out. We've got the prospect of 23 athletes, some of them winning medals at the Tokyo Olympic Games being stripped of medals. I mean that has massive legal implications, social implications and financial implications for the Paris Olympic Games and in particular for the Olympic movement. The real concern there is that there's a belief that most of the nations and most of the athletes doing the right thing but there are rogue figures out there who tried to undermine the integrity of the sport and the real concern is that there needs to be more transparency with WADA. They police this particular issue.
Sally Sara: That's Dr Steve Georgakis from the University of Sydney ending that report from Rachel Mealey.
