China’s swimmers racing to escape country’s doping past in Tokyo

HONG KONG: Chinese swimmers have struggled to escape the shadow of suspicion since a spate of doping cases in the 1990s and the four-year ban handed out to triple Olympic champion Sun Yang will only bring them added scrutiny in Tokyo, former Olympians have told Reuters.

The ban dished out to Sun, the pride of Chinese swimming, is fodder to those who had long harbour ed suspicions about the country’s programme due to its patchy doping record.

China’s swimming programme has seen its reputation tarnished by a series of scandals, most notably when one female swimmer was caught with 13 vials of human growth hormone at Sydney airport ahead of the 1998 world championships in Perth.

Beijing has since pledged to weed out drug cheats and the Chinese Swimming Association (CSA) has regularly stated its resolute opposition to the use of banned substances.

The CSA did not respond to Reuters requests for comment for this article.

The scandals have oten let Chinese swimmers dealing with questions over their performances.

No sooner had teenager Ye Shiwen stepped out of the London pool ater seting a world record to win gold at the 2012 Olympics did the allegations begin to swirl. Just 16 at the time, Ye, who has never tested positive for doping, was forced to fend off questions and insinuations of cheating, and accused her critics of being biased against Chinese athletes.

“My results come from hard work and training and I would never use any banned drugs,” she told reporters in London. “The Chinese people have clean hands.”

She did not respond to Reuters requests for comment for this article.

Multiple olympic and world champions undid not test positive for a banned substance but the Court of Arbitration for Sport suspended him in June ater he and members of his entourage were found to have smashed vials containing blood samples taken at an out-of-competition test in September 2018.

Sun, who also served a three-month ban for a doping offence in 2014, questioned the credentials and identity of the testers and has consistently proclaimed his innocence. He will be free to swim at the next Olympics in Paris in 2024.