US' nasty doping smears only sully itself

Gold medalists Team China (top), silver medalists Team USA (left) and bronze medalists Team France attend the victory ceremony for the men's 4x100m medley relay in swimming at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on Sunday. [Photo by Du Yu/Xinhua]

This is an editorial from China Daily.

The applause audiences have given the Chinese swimmers at the Paris Olympics for their good performance that won their country 12 medals as of Tuesday belies the China-bashing smears by some from the United States.

It is the splendid efforts of the Chinese swimmers that have prompted those with a political intent to leave no stone unturned in their dirty trick of tirelessly fabricating a dope scandal to stigmatize the Chinese athletes.

After 19-year-old Chinese swimmer Pan Zhanle set a new world record of 46.40 seconds when he stormed to victory in the men's 100m freestyle final on Wednesday last week, eclipsing his own previous record of 46.80 seconds set in Doha in February, those China besmirchers alleged his achievement was "inhuman" and could only be explained by doping, despite Pan having a clean record in that regard. Yet when a US swimmer performs "inhumanly", they call him "a flying fish".

And after China clinched its second swimming gold of the Paris Games by winning the men's 4x100m medley relay final on Sunday, ending the US' run of 10 successive gold medals in this event dating back to the Los Angeles 1984 Games, exactly the same group of people raised their voices again to claim the Chinese win was only achieved by doping.

According to World Aquatics, the sport's governing body, the 31 athletes of the Chinese swimming team underwent the most intensive testing, with each person being tested an average 21 times this year before the Paris Olympics started last month, while the personal average number of times of testing for all the swimmers taking part in the Games during the same period of time was 3.4. The frequent testing was still intensively carried out after the Chinese swimming team reached Paris. Within the first 10 days of their arrival, the Chinese athletes had been checked by the World Anti-Doing Agency nearly 200 times, which means each person had been tested five to seven times on average a day during this period, with the first test at 6 am and the last one not until midnight in some cases.

That WADA has not found any problem with the Chinese swimmers has even become an excuse for some in the US, including the United States Anti-Doping Agency and some media outlets, to openly doubt its integrity and professionalism, which WADA firmly rebutted, saying that the US is trying to politicize the anti-doping cause and introduce its geopolitical schemes into the Olympics.

Shortly before the opening of the Paris Olympics, bipartisan House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders even required WADA President Witold Banka to attend a hearing of the committee on its probe into the WADA's testings of Chinese swimmers. That was understandably refused by the latter, who claimed, instead, that the organization plans to review the US' Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act to ensure it complies with the rules of the regulatory body, noting "The United States cannot give themselves the right to investigate anti-doping cases in all countries in the world." The bill gives USADA and the US Department of Justice broad powers, including requiring international sports organizations to share investigative information and even allowing US judicial agencies to conduct cross-border investigations into overseas individuals and organizations.

Notably, at the 142nd International Olympic Committee General Assembly last month, when it was confirmed that the 2034 Winter Olympics will be held in Salt Lake City, Utah, the IOC added an additional condition for the US' hosting of the Games, that is, if WADA's supreme authority in the fight against doping is not fully respected or the application of the World Anti-Doping Code is hindered or undermined, the IOC can terminate the US Winter Olympics hosting contract. The IOC's concerns are fully justified given the extent to which the US has already been willing to go to try and replace WADA with USADA.

The stigmatizing of Chinese swimmers before and during the Paris Olympics is undoubtedly an organized state move that is integral to Washington's overall China-containment strategy. Shame on those US politicians trying to extend the US' long-arm jurisdiction to the Olympics by politicizing and weaponizing the anti-doping regime.

They are downgrading sports which should otherwise have been a field for exchanges, cooperation and friendship between nations to their nasty political games.

The Olympic swimming pool clearly mirrors that all.