Olympic legend testifies before House subcommittee in hearing spurred by revelations of Chinese swimmers’ positive tests before Tokyo Games.
Former Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, who won a record 23 gold medals in his career, warned a House subcommittee Tuesday night that he worries the Games might die unless doping issues are addressed with more urgency.
“If we let this slip any farther, the Olympic Games might not even be there,” Phelps told members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee in a rare nighttime hearing to address recent revelations that 23 Chinese swimmers hadPhelps and fellow former U.S. swimmer Allison Schmitt, a four-time gold medalist, described careers involving regular drug testing to prove they were clean.
The hearing, held at night to accommodate the tight schedules of both swimmers and some committee members, was part of an effort pushed by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to withhold some of the $3.7 million the U.S. pays to help fund the World Anti-Doping Agency until WADA releases the information in the report Chinese doping officials provided them in 2021.
WADA officials, who have appointed an independent prosecutor to examine the positive tests in China, did not attend the hearing, despite being invited by the committee. WADA officials have said repeatedly they didn’t have enough evidence to challenge the Chinese anti-doping officials’ findings that the 23 positive tests for the drug trimetazidine were accidental ingestions and that they couldn’t investigate in person because of pandemic restrictions at the time in China.
In a statement, WADA President Witold Banka said, “There persists a narrative from some in the U.S. suggesting that WADA somehow acted inappropriately or showed bias towards China, despite there being no evidence to support that theory”“WADA understands the tense relationship that exists between the governments of China and U.S. and has no mandate to be part of that,” Banka continued in the statement.
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