The House Select Committee on China has asked the Justice Department and FBI to investigate reports that Chinese authorities covered up positive doping tests for nearly half of the swim team sent to the last Olympics, and global anti-doping regulators failed to take action. requested that it be done.
In a letter sent late Tuesday, the commission urged authorities to take advantage of a law passed in 2020 in the wake of another doping scandal involving Russia. This law gives the Department of Justice the power to criminally prosecute anyone who aids in the doping of athletes in international competitions. Whether the crime occurred on U.S. soil.
“This scandal raises serious legal, ethical and competitive concerns and constitutes a broader state-directed strategy by the People's Republic of China to compete unfairly in the Olympics, as Russia has previously done. That's a possibility,” said Rep. John, the panel's chair. Moolener, R-Mich., and his Democratic colleague, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, said in a letter to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray.
The letter, just two months before the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, calls for increased oversight of China's athletic programs and the organization that monitors the use of banned performance-enhancing drugs, the World Anti-Doping Agency. It could put further political pressure on the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The New York Times reported last month that 23 elite Chinese swimmers tested positive for the same powerful drug months before the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, but Chinese authorities have quietly cleared them of any wrongdoing and launched anti-doping measures. It was reported that he was allowed to compete because the organization, WADA, refused. Please take action.
Swimmers won medals in five events at the 2021 Olympics, including three gold medals. Several of the swimmers are favorites to win medals at the Paris Olympics in July.
The Times reported that the FBI has learned of positive information over the past year and that federal investigators have taken steps to learn more about what happened. China has claimed that the substance that caused the swimmers' positive tests came from contaminated food, but some experts say this explanation is possible, if not impossible. I don't think so.
The House committee sent the letter four days after the agency held a meeting to deny allegations that it turned a blind eye despite positive doping tests. Ta. WADA executives once again defended their decision not to impose sanctions on Chinese swimmers, and WADA's president attacked American athletes, saying 90 percent of them don't even compete under WADA rules.
The bipartisan nature of the letter reflects a broader response in Washington about the growing threat posed by China on a variety of issues, as well as specific concerns among U.S. athletes and coaches about what they see as a pattern of doping by Chinese athletes. It reflected a consensus.
“It is essential to assess whether these doping allegations are state-sponsored, which may require further diplomatic action by the United States and the international community,” Moolenar and Krishnamoorthy wrote in the letter. There is a gender,” he said.
In a separate letter to the International Olympic Committee, the House of Commons committee called for an independent investigation into how the positive test was handled, saying: Uniting athletes around the world. ”
