Chinese Drug Cheating Poses a Threat to Paris Olympics

Chinese drug cheats and officials willing to turn a blind eye threaten to make the Paris 2024 Olympics a “train wreck,” the top U.S. anti-doping regulator said. Travis Tygart’s remarks cast another shadow over Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s ongoing visit to France where he is meeting President Emmanuel Macron, less than three months before the Olympics begin.

Last month, The New York Times and German broadcaster ARD published a bombshell investigation revealing 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for prohibited drugs before the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, but were still permitted to take part in the Games, with several winning medals.  The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the global drugs regulator for sport, accepted an explanation from Beijing’s domestic watchdog, CHINADA, pinning the swimmers’ failed tests on a contaminated hotel kitchen where the banned drug trimetazidine, known as TMZ, was present.

Clean athletes and top figures fighting for drug-free sport are incensed at the revelations about the Chinese athletes at the Tokyo Games. Few more so than Tygart, CEO of the United States Anti-Doping Agency.   “Because of the cover-up that happened by China, and WADA allowing it, now that it’s come to light it’s going to be a train wreck waiting to happen going into Paris,” Tygart said during an exclusive interview with POLITICO.