Paris Olympics: swimmer fears drug-tainted Games this summer, says TUEs still being abused by athletes, doctors
- Kregor Zirk is training at Hong Kong Sports Institute, alongside Siobhan Haughey, as the world championship finalist prepares for Summer Games
- Swimming is under a cloud, after news that 23 Chinese athletes competed in Tokyo Games despite failing drugs test
Kregor Zirk, the Estonian swimmer training alongside Siobhan Haughey in Hong Kong, fears he will not be competing on a level playing field in the Paris Olympics.
Of even greater concern for Zirk is the liberal use of Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs), which permit athletes to take substances on Wada’s banned list for the treatment of medical conditions. A diagnosis for asthma, for example, lets an athlete use medications believed to enhance sports performance.
“A lot of athletes use TUEs, and have so many sprays and other things,” Zirk said. “They don’t need these [medications], but the doctors have written out a prescription.”
A 2018 report by Swedish broadcaster SVT revealed that 70 per cent of Norway’s medals at the Winter Olympics came from skiers diagnosed with asthma, that, according to Zirk “is a bigger issue than doping, and the issue Wada needs to look at very closely”.
Zirk said the Chinese doping affair had left “everyone a little bit disappointed in the whole system”, and harmed his relationships with drugs testers.
The 23 swimmers tested positive for the heart medication, trimetazidine (TMZ), weeks before the Tokyo Games in 2021, but were cleared to compete after the China Anti-Doping Agency concluded the athletes consumed the medicine from a hotel’s contaminated food supply.
“It has diminished my confidence [in Wada],” Zirk said. “The first doping test I had after the report came out, I didn’t want to work together with the testers.
“I wanted to get it done, and say goodbye. Previously, it was a more positive experience. Those testers haven’t done anything wrong, but if you think the system is rotten inside, it feels a bit unfair.”
Zirk said it was frustrating not being able to trust that most competitors were clean, but tried not to think about it too much.
“It would take my attention away from what I have to do,” he said. “I cannot control these things, I have to focus on the things I can control.”
Zirk is tested roughly twice a month, with the frequency increasing after his world championships exploits in February. Last year, he could go for three months at a time without being asked to submit a sample.
But he said some anti-doping agencies were guilty of operating outside the boundaries of what was reasonable.
“In Estonia, we have had examples of athletes posting pictures on Instagram from a holiday they had two weeks earlier, then being contacted by the agency to ask why they are out of the country,” he said. “It is pushing the limits too far: why would you go on someone’s Instagram to look for these things?”
Zirk did not think the negative publicity around the Chinese swimmers would overshadow the sport in Paris this summer.
“I feel like nothing is going to happen,” he said “We are waiting to see what [IOC president] Thomas Bach and Wada will say, but, I think, over time, people will forget it, which is sad.
“Athletes and the public can show their disappointment, but fighting it is going to be hard. Hopefully, the next time something similar happens, it will be different.”
In the meantime, he is eagerly anticipating a vibrant atmosphere in Paris, after the low-key experience in Tokyo.
“I love big arenas and big crowds,” said Zirk, whose target in the French capital is a personal best swim in the final of his favoured 200m butterfly.
“That would be a 10 out of 10 performance,” he said. “You do not know how fast the others will swim, but if you achieve that, you know you could not have done much more.”
