'Betrayed by the system.' Chinese swimmers' positive tests raise questions before 2024 Games

198.00 Dollar US$
April 23, 2024 United States, California, Alameda 8

Description

With two months to go until the U.S. Olympic swimming trials, and three months to go until the 2024 Olympic Games, the question hanging over the international swimming community isn’t how many medals America’s Katie Ledecky or France’s Leon Marchand will win in Paris, it’s this:


How did a banned prescription heart medicine that is available only in pill form somehow get spread around a hotel kitchen in such a way to be ingested in some manner by 23 elite Chinese swimmers, all of whom had been warned for years not to ingest anything they don’t trust? 


Do we believe that really happened? And if we don’t believe that really happened, then we are watching in real time as the worst doping scandal in swimming in at least a generation envelopes a sport that will dominate the first week of the Summer Games.


With two months to go until the U.S. Olympic swimming trials, and three months to go until the 2024 Olympic Games, the question hanging over the international swimming community isn’t how many medals America’s Katie Ledecky or France’s Leon Marchand will win in Paris, it’s this:


How did a banned prescription heart medicine that is available only in pill form somehow get spread around a hotel kitchen in such a way to be ingested in some manner by 23 elite Chinese swimmers, all of whom had been warned for years not to ingest anything they don’t trust? 


Do we believe that really happened? And if we don’t believe that really happened, then we are watching in real time as the worst doping scandal in swimming in at least a generation envelopes a sport that will dominate the first week of the Summer Games.


With two months to go until the U.S. Olympic swimming trials, and three months to go until the 2024 Olympic Games, the question hanging over the international swimming community isn’t how many medals America’s Katie Ledecky or France’s Leon Marchand will win in Paris, it’s this:


How did a banned prescription heart medicine that is available only in pill form somehow get spread around a hotel kitchen in such a way to be ingested in some manner by 23 elite Chinese swimmers, all of whom had been warned for years not to ingest anything they don’t trust? 


Do we believe that really happened? And if we don’t believe that really happened, then we are watching in real time as the worst doping scandal in swimming in at least a generation envelopes a sport that will dominate the first week of the Summer Games.


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