2024 Olympics: how to prevent use of performance-enhancing drugs?
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00:00Some more serious stories have perhaps flown under the radar these games. On Friday, the Jodoka
00:05Mohamed Sameen Faizad, one of six Afghans at the Olympics, was provisionally suspended after failing
00:11a doping test for a banned steroid. Elsewhere, the Chinese swimming team has faced some tough
00:16questions from journalists. Wang Chun and Zheng Yufei, who've both been on the podium, were among
00:2323 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for a banned substance ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.
00:29Recent media reports revealed that they were allowed to compete in those games without being
00:34sanctioned. We can talk a little bit more about this subject with Andy Brown, who's a journalist
00:38and editor of Sports Integrity Initiative. He's been writing about sports governance for 15
00:45years. So maybe before getting into this Chinese swimmer's story, can we perhaps
00:49touch on doping more broadly? Is it still as big a problem as it once was, would you say?
00:55I think it's always going to be athletes and indeed states who want to take a shortcut to success
01:05as part of the system of winning medals and obtaining personal requests.
01:13So if we talk a bit about these Chinese swimmers then, they took banned substances before being
01:18allowed to compete in Tokyo, we know this. They even went on to win three gold medals. So
01:25how was it that they were allowed to compete in the end?
01:29Well, basically what's supposed to happen is under anti-doping there's supposed to be strict
01:34liability. So an athlete who tests positive, much like if you're guilty of a driving effect,
01:41you have to prove your own innocence. So you have to prove that the substance came into your system,
01:47prior food, medication, something like that, contamination. But the key point is you're
01:56supposed to be provisionally suspended before that investigation takes place.
02:00The Chinese swimmers tested for low levels of primatase, very low levels, but they weren't
02:07provisionally suspended, which is where the suspicion starts. Why didn't that happen?
02:12Well, it appears there is a hole in the code. An initial review takes place after which the
02:21athletes are supposed to be provisionally suspended. That wouldn't happen. They decided
02:26that contamination is the most likely scenario and they didn't provisionally suspend them.
02:33WADA even admits to this in a recent statement, a hole in the code. It said,
02:41WADA is generally concerned about the number of cases that are being closed without sanction
02:46when it is not possible to challenge the contamination. So in other words,
02:54because China didn't provisionally suspend the athletes, WADA had absolutely nothing to cover.
03:03We're now seeing a bit of a debate emerge between American law enforcement, the FBI,
03:08who are looking into this case, which the International Olympic Committee doesn't seem
03:13to like. Can you explain what's going on with that tug of war?
03:18There's been sort of political rumblings between the US Anti-Doping Authority and
03:26WADA and the IOC for some time. I mean, this goes back to the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping
03:32Authority, which criminalised the provision of doping substances to athletes and WADA actually
03:39campaigned against that. Since then, they've kind of been at loggerheads about liability for doping
03:46and the US position is that China provisionally suspended them, as most anti-doping organisations
03:54are required to do. If you test positive, you're supposed to be provisionally suspended.
03:59WADA didn't do that. WADA didn't appeal the Chinese authorities' decision not to do that.
04:06But that's where all of this is coming from and I think the authorities are looking into
04:10whether they should have done that, whether there's been some kind of cover-up here.
04:16All right, Andy Brown, editor of Sports Integrity Initiative,
04:19thank you very much for your time and for speaking to France 24.