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Olympics-China anti-doping agency implicates New York Times of sabotage over report

China's antidoping firm (CHINADA) has implicated the New york city Times of politicizing doping problems and said the publication was trying to impact the psychology of Chinese professional athletes at the Paris Olympics.

CHINADA said it strictly follows anti-doping standards and condemned the Times as unjust and immoral a day after the newspaper reported 2 of the country's swimmers in 2022 tested favorable for a banned steroid but had their provisional suspensions raised.

The suspensions were lifted after the positive tests were blamed on polluted food, and the Times said one of the two swimmers was competing at the Paris Games.

(The New York City Times') primary function is to interfere with the order of the Paris Olympic swimming competition, affect the psychology of Chinese athletes and damage their competitive capability, CHINADA said in a statement on Wednesday.

This is incredibly unreasonable and immoral.

Asked for remark, a spokesperson for the New york city Times reacted: We are positive in the accuracy of our reporting.

The Times' report ratcheted up already high tensions in between the World Anti-Doping Agency and the U.S. anti-doping body over the handling of a case including 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for trimetazidine (TMZ) weeks before the Tokyo Games.

Those positives were also blamed on contamination.

U.S. Anti-Doping Agency chief Travis Tygart said on Tuesday that China had actually swept this favorable test for a hard-core steroid under the rug.

CHINADA said doping contamination in meat products is a typical problem worldwide and mentioned the case of American sprinter

Erriyon Knighton

in its declaration.

World silver medalist Knighton was not suspended for testing favorable for a banned compound, trenbolone, previously this year after an arbitrator found the result was likely caused by contaminated meat, and he will contend in Paris.

Pertinent research reveals that trenbolone is a protein anabolic preparation that has a strong effect of enhancing strength and explosive power, and is not a typical pollutant, CHINADA said.

Reached for comment, USADA stated: The factor that CHINADA can talk about the Knighton case is due to the fact that we followed the mandatory rules on openness, unlike what they failed to do when sweeping the TMZ 23 and now the metandienone cases under the carpet.

The U.S. agency stated CHINADA had run contrary to world anti-doping code, and stated it had taken the Knighton case to arbitration after providing the sprinter a provisionary suspension.

The arbitrator ruled in Knighton's favour based on him particularly showing the meat at the restaurant where he ate was contaminated with trenbolone, not based upon a general claim of contamination, USADA said.

(source: Reuters)