Good morning. We're covering a doping scandal at the Paris Games — as well as the Middle East, wildfires and dating in Ukraine.
Troubled waters
When you sit down to watch the Olympics, you expect that you're seeing the world's best athletes competing on a level playing field. The organization that runs the Olympics prides itself on that promise, and it presents the Games as being tougher on dopers than any other sporting competition. It claims to have the most rigorous drug testing. Those who test positive face serious punishments, including multiyear bans. And an independent entity — known as the World Anti-Doping Agency — has global authority to enforce a strict antidoping code. But that system's shortcomings have been on display at the Paris Games. Over the past few months, my Times colleagues and I have uncovered a troubling pattern of positive doping tests in the Chinese swimming program. Twelve members of the Chinese Olympic team tested positive in recent years for powerful performance-enhancing drugs but were cleared to keep competing. Until our stories, none of the positive tests had been publicly disclosed, as required by the rules. Concerns have spilled over to the pool deck in Paris, where some swimmers said the antidoping authorities had failed to ensure that these Games were fair. "I don't really think they've given us enough evidence to support them with how this case was handled," said Caeleb Dressel, one of the senior leaders on the U.S. team. In today's newsletter, I'll explain how the Olympic drug testing system is supposed to function, and why, in some of the most high-profile cases, like this one involving the Chinese swimmers, it may not be working. And now the Justice Department and F.B.I. are investigating. How it's supposed to workEach country is in charge of policing its own athletes. That means that the United States Anti-Doping Agency takes the lead in testing and investigating American athletes, the China Anti-Doping Agency does the same in its country, and so on. Critics say this process gives too much leeway to countries — especially authoritarian ones, where the government has a hand in everything — in holding their own athletes accountable. To make sure that countries are not skirting the rules, there's a backstop: the World Anti-Doping Agency, known as WADA. It's supposed to step in when countries fail to properly police their athletes. It aims to keep doping athletes off the field. And the system does often work. Perhaps the best example of this was in 2022, at the Winter Olympics, when the Russian figure-skating sensation Kamila Valieva tested positive for a banned drug known as TMZ. Valieva claimed that she had unwittingly taken the drug when she ate a strawberry dessert her grandfather made for her. But under the strict antidoping rules that govern the Olympics, athletes are essentially presumed guilty until they can prove themselves innocent. The Russians exonerated her. So WADA appealed the case to the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport, and she ultimately received a four-year ban. The Paris problemThere are times, though, when the system doesn't work. Twelve members of the Chinese swimming team at the Paris Games have had positive drug tests in recent years. None of them have ever been disciplined. The Chinese antidoping authorities — with the help of their country's security services — concluded the swimmers were all unwitting victims of contamination from food. In one of the cases, the Chinese officials claimed that traces of a prescription heart medication had been found in the kitchen of a hotel where swimmers had been staying for a meet. In another, they claimed that two swimmers' positive tests were probably triggered by hamburgers they ate at a restaurant in Beijing. Among the many problems with how these positive tests were handled, antidoping experts and authorities say, is that in all those cases, the Chinese were unable to prove how the drugs got into the food. They also did not announce the results of the investigations publicly, as is required. That rule is important because it warns other athletes to stay away from certain foods (Watch out for the burgers in Beijing!), and it encourages transparency with the public. WADA reviewed how the Chinese handled all of these cases. But instead of stepping in — as it did with the teenage Russian figure-skating sensation — WADA declined to take any action, paving the way for the athletes to keep competing. When a reporter asked Katie Ledecky, the American swimming great, whether she trusted that the competition in Paris was fair, her response was not enthusiastic. "We're going to race whoever's in the lanes next to us, and we're not the ones paid to do the testing. So we hope that the people that are, follow their own rules," she said. But, Ledecky added, "We want to see some change for the future so that you don't have to ask us that question." For more: The International Olympic Committee recently awarded the 2034 Winter Games to Salt Lake City, but it came with an extraordinary demand: that officials push back on Justice Department, F.B.I. and Congressional investigations into doping by Chinese athletes.
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domingo, 4 de agosto de 2024
The Morning: Olympic drug testing
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