China’s contingent of athletes at the Paris Olympic Games has been competing against all odds, not only in the sporting events themselves but also from hostile competitors and officials.

World Aquatics, the international governing body for swimming, has revealed that China’s 31 swimmers in Paris have been tested an average of 21 times by various anti-doping organizations since the start of the year in preparation for the Games, compared with only six times for the American team.

The increased screening of the swimmers came about after The New York Times (NYT) reported that 23 elite Chinese swimmers tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug in 2021 ahead of the Tokyo Summer Games. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accepted China’s explanation that the positive tests were the result of accidentally eating contaminated meat. It appears that the story was leaked to the NYT before the games to destabilize the Chinese athletes.

The China findings were confirmed by associate professor of sport at the University of Canberra (Australia), Catherine Ordway, who said that many parts of the world use steroids in rearing lean beef and pork and that tests could pick up minuscule amounts in athletes who are unaware they have consumed them.

Ordway noted that no one had challenged Australian swimmers in Paris when they broke Olympic records and that no country should subject foreign athletes to a level of scrutiny “that we would find completely repugnant and unacceptable for ourselves”.

The attack on Chinese swimmers came after 19-year-old Pan Zhanle dominated the men’s 100-meter freestyle, smashing his own world record to finish a full second ahead of the silver medalist, Australian Kyle Chalmers.

“Impossible”, shouted Australian swimming coach Brett Hawke. “That’s not real, you don’t beat that field … If it seems too good to be true, it probably is,” he added. Hawke came under a barrage of criticism from fellow Australians, with some calling him a bogan drongo (useless idiot).

But runner-up, Chalmers, who was publicly rebuked on social media when he initially snubbed Pan for a handshake, showed his sportsmanship with: “I trust that Pan deserves that gold medal,” and shook hands.

The Chinese swimmers were worried that, in addition to the intense anti-doping tests, the situation could affect their once-friendly exchanges with foreign competitors. Pan said after his race that American and Australian swimmers had been icy toward him.

After China won the men’s 4x100-meter swimming medley relay, the loser in fourth place, British athlete Adam Peaty, said the race was unfair because two of the Chinese team had tested positive three years previously. He, however, failed to recognize that the two had been cleared of any wrongdoing by WADA.

In another incident of Olympic snobbery, the British team in the women’s 10-meter diving platform snubbed the winning Chinese divers Quan Hongchan and Chen Yuxi to congratulate the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea silver medalists, completely bypassing the winners. Quan retaliated by giving her teammate a big hug.

But the Americans are clearly upset by WADA’s decision to clear the Chinese of doping offenses. A bipartisan group of US lawmakers has introduced a bill that would cut $3.7 million in future funding for the global sports anti-doping system unless WADA makes sweeping reforms.

One of the bill’s co-sponsors, Senator Chris Van Hollen, claimed that WADA had failed to do its job.

Coupled with this is a criminal probe launched by the US Justice Department and the FBI into WADA to investigate whether the agency had kept the results of the anti-doping tests secret.

Testifying before a US House committee, Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps called for major reforms to WADA. “Right now,” said Phelps, “people are just getting away with everything. How is that possible? It makes no sense.” Also testifying was Travis Tygart, head of the US anti-doping agency, who claimed that WADA had failed for years to punish Chinese and Russian athletes for using performance-enhancing drugs.

The Rodchenkov Act, passed with bipartisan support in 2020, gives the US worldwide jurisdiction over suspected doping conspiracies. The law was passed despite lobbying from WADA and Olympics officials warning of overreach in the US.

The joint effort by the Department of Justice and the FBI seems to be targeting WADA for accepting Chinese authorities’ claims in 2021, three years before the Paris Olympics.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is fed up with the US’ continual attacks on WADA and Chinese athletes and has threatened to reject Salt Lake City’s bid to host the Winter Games in 2034.

Ingmar De Vos, an IOC committee member from Belgium, said a probe by the US Congress and a criminal investigation launched by the US Justice Department “are extremely worrying and basically, for us, unacceptable”.

In an unprecedented move, the IOC demanded that Utah officials, along with the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, sign a contract affirming respect for WADA in exchange for an agreement to hold the 2034 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. If the Americans fail to sign the affirmation, they could lose their status as a host city for the Winter Olympics.

The ignorant snobbery of foreign athletes toward the Chinese team could be put down to their having been brainwashed by the Western media into believing that China is evil, but for the officials, there is no excuse. Their actions instill hatred among their countrymen and should be condemned. There is no place in sports for politics, as illustrated by the viral selfies of the DPRK, Republic of Korea, and Chinese table tennis medalists being photographed together.

The author is a former chief information officer of the Hong Kong government, a PR and media consultant and veteran journalist.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.