‘Deep questions’ need answering over China drug scandal, says Campbell

Cate Campbell, the four-time Olympian and chair of the Australian Olympic Committee’s athletes commission, says there are deep questions to be answered about the global anti-doping system as the shadow of a Chinese drug scandal lingers ahead of the Paris Games.

The revelation that 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for a banned performance-enhancing substance seven months before the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 but were cleared to compete continues to reverberate two months after it emerged.

Newly retired Olympic swimmer Cate Campbell appears at the federal government’s announcement of a record funding package for Olympic sports and athletes in Canberra on Friday.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has been under fire over the case, which was this week the subject of a hearing in the US Congress at which swimming great Michael Phelps said athletes had lost confidence in the watchdog and teammates would “live with the ‘what ifs’ for the rest of their lives”.

Campbell, who confirmed her retirement on Thursday after falling short of qualifying for a fifth Olympics, said she expected athletes would look more closely at the vexed issue and begin to address it after Paris.

“I think there are some deep questions that need to be answered,” said the 32-year-old, who heads the AOC’s athlete advisory body. “It’s something that I will definitely look at pursuing and speaking more about more after Paris.

“Right now is not the time. I don’t want to take away any focus or attention from the athletes who are going to be competing in Paris. They are the stars and they deserve the front pages and the back pages and all the pages in between. But there will be some questions asked [after the Games].”

The results of an independent review commissioned by WADA are due before the Olympics, at which 11 of the Chinese competitors who recorded positive samples before Tokyo will be swimming.

WADA has staunchly defended its handling of the affair since it was uncovered in April by an investigation by the New York Times and Germany’s ARD. It accepted China’s explanation that tiny amounts of trimetazidine, a prohibited heart medication, had been ingested by swimmers after contamination in the kitchen of a hotel they were staying in.

Phelps, who won 23 Olympic gold medals in his swimming career, 14 more than any athlete ever, told US politicians: “As athletes, our faith can no longer be blindly placed in the World Anti-Doping Agency, an organisation that continues to prove that it is either incapable or unwilling to enforce its policies consistently around the world”.

As chair of the Australian athletes commission, Campbell has sat in on WADA teleconferences in which its officials have outlined its reasons for the Chinese swimmers avoiding any sanctions.

She said Australia’s world-beating swimmers would be doing their best to concentrate on being ready for their races in Paris and had little to gain from fretting over uncertainty about anti-doping procedures.

“I think athletes, while they obviously watched with concern when the story broke about WADA and China and the positive tests that came out, overwhelming there is a sense that you can only control what you can control,” Campbell said after flanking Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the announcement of a record-breaking federal government funding package for Olympic sports and athletes in Canberra on Friday.

“Right now, heading into Paris, we’re so close to competition, it’s too late to be making changes in the system and you can only focus on what you need to do.”

AOC president Ian Chesterman, who will succeed John Coates as an Australian member of the International Olympic Committee on the eve of the Paris Olympics, said it was vital that athletes had trust in the anti-doping processes.

“So we welcome that independent review and we’ll see what that comes back with,” he said. “But we certainly know the effort that goes into trying to make sport a clean product for all our athletes and athletes from around the world. We are supporters of the work of WADA.“

Campbell, meanwhile, moved to play down suggestions of a rift with the US swimming team, saying she had messaged Phelps to make clear she had only been joking when she referred to the Americans as “sore losers” at the world championships in Japan last year.

Campbell’s comment, made during a conversation on Nine’s Today program with host Karl Stefanovic after Australia won 13 gold medals to the US’s seven at the world titles, drew reactions from Phelps and 100 metres breaststroke world record holder Lilly King when it was played during the broadcast of the US Olympic trials this month.

“If somebody said that to me, I would lose it,” said Phelps, who is also retired. “I would literally make them eat every word they just said about me.”

Campbell said on Friday she had since reached out to Phelps and remained great friends with many past and present US swimmers after racing them for years.

“For there to be a feud, there has to be animosity on both sides and there is zero animosity on my side toward the US. I only have respect for them,” she said. “A little bit of healthy banter from time to time, all in jest, is something that Australians get really well and maybe didn’t translate overly well to the American sensibilities.”