My Take | Why US politicians are picking on Chinese Olympic swimmers
- As with Washington’s routine attempts to challenge all things Chinese as well as global multilateral agencies, its row with the World Anti-Doping Agency is par for the course
Despite the excessive scrutiny and outrageous record numbers of testing, some sour grapes competitors, commentators and coaches still insinuate, with zero evidence, that Chinese swimmers at the Paris Olympics could be doping.
According to World Aquatics, the international governing body for swimming, China’s 31 swimmers in Paris have been tested an average of 21 times by various anti-doping agencies since the start of this year, compared with six times for their American rivals, according to an NBC News report.
But that’s not all. From last year, Qin Haiyang had the dubious distinction of being the world’s most tested swimmer at 46 times. Others most tested include Zhang Yufei (43 times), Li Bingjie (42), Yu Yiting (31), Liu Yaxin (29), Pan Zhanle (29) and Yang Junxuan (27). They cleared all the tests. If that’s not clean, I don’t know what is. Even Hong Kong’s Siobhan Haughey was tested 17 times.
Many of their Chinese fans have cried foul.
They may be right, but I am glad the swimmers were excessively tested. Imagine what those self-righteous – or is it racist? – Western critics would say if the Chinese swimmers were only tested with the same frequency as others. I can just see the headlines!
Otherwise, Pan’s training team must be doping geniuses. Having passed so many tests, he smashed his own world record in the men’s 100-metre freestyle. Some prominent people in the sport still went online to hint that he must have doped.
