Several members of the Chinese nationwide swimming workforce stay embroiled in a doping scandal.
The swimmers in query have been beneath hearth since testing constructive for the banned coronary heart remedy trimetazidine in 2021.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in the end cleared the athletes for competitors on the Tokyo Olympics.
Last month, the Chinese Swimming Association chosen a few of these athletes for its 2024 Olympic workforce. The swimmers are making ready to journey to compete in Paris later this month.
But on Thursday, World Aquatics revealed that its high directors had been ordered to testify as witnesses in a U.S. felony investigation into the case of the 23 Chinese swimmers.
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The Chinese swimmers received three gold medals on the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, just a few weeks after WADA said the swimmers’ constructive assessments have been at the least partially attributable to inadvertently being uncovered to the substance by way of “contamination.”
The Chinese Doping Agency initially made an analogous argument, to which WADA stated it was “not ready to disprove.”
SEVERAL CHINESE SWIMMERS EMBROILED IN DOPING SCANDAL SELECTED FOR PARIS OLYMPICS: REPORT
Those choices, which World Aquatics additionally individually reached, have been later made public in April through reporting by The New York Times and German broadcaster ARD.
A House committee on China on May 21 requested the Justice Department and the FBI to research the case beneath a federal regulation that permits probes into suspected doping conspiracies even when they occurred outdoors the U.S.
A view of the Olympic swimming pool on the Paris La Defense Arena in Nanterre, France, outdoors Paris. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)
“World Aquatics can affirm that its govt director, Brent Nowicki, was served with a witness subpoena by the United States authorities,” the federation stated in an announcement to The Associated Press. “He is working to schedule a gathering with the federal government, which, in all chance will obviate the necessity for testimony earlier than a Grand Jury.”
Legendary American swimmer Michael Phelps testified earlier than a congressional committee final month. The ongoing case was talked about in the course of the listening to, and Phelps stated athletes have misplaced religion in WADA as the worldwide watchdog that’s liable for preserving cheaters out of sports activities.
WADA officers rejected an invite to come back to the listening to, saying it might be “inappropriate to be pulled right into a political debate earlier than a U.S. congressional committee relating to a case from a distinct nation, particularly whereas an unbiased evaluate into WADA’s dealing with of the case is ongoing.”
From left: Former Olympic athlete Michael Phelps, U.S. Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart and former Olympic athlete Allison Schmitt are sworn in throughout a House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations listening to analyzing Anti-Doping Measures in Advance of the 2024 Olympics on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on June 25. (AP Photo)
Travis Tygart, CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, recommended to the AP that an ongoing federal investigation may make sports activities officers touring to the U.S. “fearful that they could should reply questions on their actions from the FBI.”
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The U.S. is ready to host the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles. It will mark the primary time the Summer Games will probably be held in an American metropolis since Atlanta hosted the 1996 Olympics.
Salt Lake City is slated to host the 2034 Winter Games.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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