Chinese swimmers had to have eaten 5kg of food to fail 2021 drug tests, Usada chief says
Key part of the case was World Anti-Doping Agency’s acceptance that the swimmers had been contaminated by traces of a banned drug in a hotel kitchen
The head of the United States Anti-Doping Agency told senators that Chinese swimmers would have had to eat around 11lbs (5kg) of food to test for the amounts of the performance enhancer that resulted in the much-debated positive drug tests from 2021 that were later disregarded.
“It’s unbelievable to think that Tinkerbell just showed up and sprinkled it all over the kitchen,” Travis Tygart said in a Senate hearing on Tuesday focused on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s response to the doping case.
A key part of that case was Wada’s acceptance of the explanation from Chinese authorities that the swimmers had been contaminated by traces of the drug trimetazidine (TMZ) in a hotel kitchen.
Usada scientists analysed data from a report commissioned by Wada to come up with the amount of food (5kg) or liquid (4.9 litres) the athletes would have had to have consumed to test positive at the levels they did.
Wada officials declined to take part in the hearing, which spokesman James Fitzgerald called “another political effort led by Travis Tygart … to leverage the Senate and the media in a desperate effort to relitigate the Chinese swimming cases and misinform athletes and other stakeholders”.
Also testifying was former US drug tsar Rahul Gupta, whose decision at the start of this year to withhold US$3.6 million in funding – the biggest single chunk that Wada receives on an annual basis – furthered a long-running feud between US and Wada authorities.