By Alan Baldwin
PARIS (Reuters) – Triple Olympic gold medallist Adam Peaty called for stricter dope testing and said he had no faith in the system after China won the final men’s swimming race of the Paris Olympics and Britain missed out on a medal in fourth place.
Asked whether he was speaking in anger and frustration, Peaty indicated to reporters at the La Defense Arena that there was more to it.
“I think we’ve got to have faith in the system, but we also don’t,” he said. “I think it’s just got to be stricter.”
The Chinese swim team has been under intense scrutiny since revelations in April that 23 of the country’s swimmers tested positive for a banned heart medication before the 2021 Tokyo Olympics but were allowed to compete.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accepted the findings of a Chinese investigation that the results were due to contamination from a hotel kitchen, and an independent review backed WADA’s handling of the case.
The New York Times also reported last week that two of the country’s swimmers tested positive in 2022 for a banned steroid, also blamed on contaminated food, but had provisional suspensions lifted.
China’s anti-doping agency (CHINADA) has since accused the U.S. newspaper of politicising doping issues and said the publication was trying to “affect the psychology” of Chinese athletes at the Olympics.
“One of my favourite quotes I’ve seen lately is there’s no point in winning if you don’t win it fair,” said Peaty. “And I think you know that truth in your heart.”Even if you touch and you know you’re cheating, you don’t win it, right.
“So for me, if you’ve been on that and you have been contaminated twice, I think as an honourable person, you should be out of the sport,” said the Briton, who narrowly missed out in his bid for a third successive 100 metres breaststroke gold when he took the silver in Paris.
Peaty said that he did not want to paint a whole nation or group of people with one brush but that the two reported cases were very disappointing.
“If you’re cheating, it’s fraud. And it’s not about the podium, because whoever’s in the race, I expect in my head it has to be fair to be there. And we did our best job as a team to do that.”
China ended the meet fifth in the medals table with 12 medals but only two golds, compared with 28 medals for the United States including eight golds. Australia, France and Canada were all ahead of China on golds won.
Britain took only five medals and one gold, the men’s 4×200 freestyle relay. China finished fourth in that race.
Nine-times gold medallist Caeleb Dressel, on the U.S. team that took silver behind China in Sunday’s relay, was more guarded in his comments.
“We have to put our trust in WADA,” he said when asked if he felt he was racing against clean opponents.
“There’s a lot of stuff you can say in interviews that’s just going to light you up, so it’s a no-win situation for me… They were the better team, and it’s as simple as that.”
(Additional reporting by Rohith Nair; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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