Anger Lingers Over Positive Doping Tests for Chinese Swimmers

The days before the Olympic swimming competition are often a chance for the world’s best swimmers to share their hopes and expectations.

This year, it was the latest chance to air their grievances.

There was talk of Chinese doping, demands for transparency and simmering anger. Much of the latter was focused on disappointment and disillusionment with the global antidoping system, and the irritation was international.

An Australian swimmer talked of podium protests. Chinese journalists complained of unfair scrutiny. And when an American star, Caeleb Dressel, was asked if he had faith in the systems set up to catch cheats ahead of an Olympics in which he will attempt to add to his seven gold medals, he offered a one-word response: “No.”

The Paris Olympics will be the first major international swimming competition since a New York Times investigation reported that 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for a banned substance before the last Summer Olympics but were allowed to compete anyway.

Chinese officials said that the swimmers ingested the banned substance, trimetazidine, in tiny amounts as a result of accidental contamination. Officials at the World Anti-Doping Agency, the body empowered to keep banned substances out of elite sports, secretly accepted that defense and allowed them to keep competing.