World Swimming Federation confirms US federal investigation into Chinese swimmers' doping tests

GENEVA (AP) — The International Swimming Federation says its top administrator has been subpoenaed to testify in a U.S. criminal investigation into the case of 23 Chinese swimmers who failed doping tests in 2021 but were allowed to continue competing.

The news comes just three weeks before the Paris Olympics, where 11 of the Chinese swimmers who tested positive for the banned heart drug three years ago are due to compete.

Swimmers have won three gold medals for China at the Tokyo 2021 Olympics, just weeks after the World Anti-Doping Agency refused to challenge Chinese authorities' explanation of food contamination at a hotel to justify their non-suspension.

These decisions, taken separately by World Aquatics, were only revealed last April by the New York Times and the German television channel ARD.

On May 21, a House committee on China asked the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate the case under a federal law that allows investigations into suspected doping conspiracy allegations even if they occurred outside the United States.

World Aquatics confirmed to The Associated Press on Thursday that Executive Director Brent Nowicki has been subpoenaed to testify as part of the investigation.

World Aquatics can confirm that its executive director, Brent Nowicki, has received a subpoena from the U.S. government, the federation said in a statement to AP. He is working to set up a meeting with the government, which will likely avoid the need for grand jury testimony.

World Aquatics declined to answer questions about where and when Nowicki received his subpoena and did not say which office was leading the investigation.

Consistent with our standard practice, the FBI neither confirms nor denies the existence of an investigation, the bureau said in an emailed response Thursday.

The Chinese swimmers' case could become the most high-profile use yet of a U.S. federal law passed in 2020 in the wake of Russia's long-running state-sponsored doping scandal in sports.

The 23 swimmers tested positive for trimetazidine in January 2021 and their cases were registered in the world anti-doping database a few weeks later. They included Zhang Yufei, who went on to win Olympic gold in the women's 200-meter butterfly and 4×200-meter freestyle relay, and Wang Shun, the men's 200-meter medley champion.

A subsequent investigation by Chinese authorities revealed that traces of the substance had been found in the kitchen of a hotel where the team was staying. No explanation has been given as to how the prescribed drug in tablet form ended up there.

WADA accepted the theory that allowed the Chinese swimmers to continue competing, and has since described it as a relatively straightforward case of mass contamination.

The agency has since defended its handling of the case, which was kept secret in 2021, saying it had no way to independently refute the theory during the COVID-19 pandemic, when travel to China was not possible.

WADA lawyers said in April this year that they did not have the evidence to win separate appeals against the 23 swimmers ahead of the Tokyo Olympics. Any appeal seeking a suspension for the swimmers would have been heard by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, where Nowicki was a longtime senior lawyer before joining World Aquatics in 2021.

This scandal raises serious legal, ethical, and competitive concerns and may constitute a broader state-sponsored strategy by the People's Republic of China to compete unfairly in the Olympic Games as Russia has done in the past, the Special Committee of the Communist Party of China said in the letter to the Justice Department and the FBI.

The issue was also raised at a congressional hearing last month, where swimming great Michael Phelps said athletes had lost confidence in WADA as a global watchdog trying to keep cheaters out of the sport.

Officials at the Montreal-based agency declined an invitation to appear at the hearing, saying it would be inappropriate to be drawn into a political debate before a U.S. congressional committee over a case from another country, especially while an independent review of WADA's handling of the case is underway.

The review report is pending from a former prosecutor appointed by WADA in the Swiss canton of Vaud, home to the International Olympic Committee and the governing bodies of many Olympic sports.

U.S. Anti-Doping Agency Director General Travis Tygart suggested to The Associated Press that an ongoing federal investigation could raise concerns that sports officials traveling to the United States could face FBI questions about their activities.

The United States will host the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles, and on July 24 in Paris, the IOC is expected to confirm Salt Lake City as the host of the 2034 Winter Games.

The Rodchenkov anti-doping law, named after a whistleblower who exposed Russian state-sponsored doping, was passed with bipartisan support and has received broad support from the international sporting world for its goals of criminalizing doping.

However, WADA has lobbied against what it sees as a risk of excessive extraterritorial jurisdiction it could grant to US federal agencies, and the IOC has also expressed concerns.

The Rodchenkov Act, Tygart said, was enacted in 2021 with broad support from athletes, sports and multinational governments because WADA could not be trusted to be a strong and fair global watchdog to protect clean athletes and fair sport.

___ Pells reported from Denver, Colorado.

___

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/paris-olympics-2024

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