China Club Of Doping Cases Grows By Three Swimmers & Coach: Same Drug As Chen In Rio

Three Chinese national swimming team members have been served suspensions of between six months and a year after they tested positve for the same substance that disqualified teenager Chen Xinyi during the Olympic Games in Rio last month, according to paperwork addressed to FINA last week.

The cases, among six in China that date back many months but have yet to make the published list of FINA cases, involve a masking agent being used by a pod of swimmers in the same season, sparking by fears within China of a “systematic network of doping young athletes”.

In a season marked by the resignations from FINA of three doping experts in protest at their advice over Russia being ignored by the international swimming federation, Chen, 18, took to seven the number of positive tests by national team members (past and present) in China.

The teenager tested positive for hydrochlorothiazide, the banned diuretic, after finishing fifth in the final of the 100m butterfly in Rio. She was provisionally suspended and has until September 15 to either file an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport or defend herself before the Doping Panel of FINA before final judgement in her case.

Six months after an investigation by The Times and SwimVortex forced Chinese swimming to admit that it had six undeclared positive tests on its account, we can reveal the names of the three swimmers who also tested positive for the hydrochlorothiazide that caught Chen out in Rio.

Li Xuanxu by Patrick B. Kraemer

According to sources in Beijing who did not wish to be named for fear of reprisal,  the swimmers and a coach whose suspensions were sent by China to FINA last week are:

Li Xuanxu – 6 months Huang Chaocheng – 6 …

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