200 doping tests in 10 days: China's swim team staff cries foul over increased testing before Paris Olympics

SINGAPORE: China’s Olympic swimmers were reportedly tested for doping around 200 times over 10 days after they arrived in Paris for the Games, in a sign of the scrutiny facing the contingent after a recent doping row.

According to Mr Yu Liang, a nutritionist for the Chinese swimming team, the athletes were subjected to tests from “6am in the morning” and even during breaks in the afternoon. 

“In these 10 days, our 31 athletes went through almost 200 tests for doping by the International Testing Agency (ITA) - this is on top of training and jet lag,” claimed Mr Yu in a since-deleted post on Chinese social media platform Weibo.

He added that an average of 20 people were tested every day, with an average of five to seven tests per person. 

“We had no choice but to rest on the sofas in the hotel lobby, (even then there were tests) from 9pm till past midnight.”

In his post, Mr Yu said an ITA staff reportedly told him the Chinese swimming team was “really subjected to too many tests, but it was out of the officers’ control as the testing regime was ordered from the higher ups”. 

According to Mr Yu, the officer also said: “I can’t imagine that the Chinese athletes and your staff are so cooperative. If it were another team (in your shoes), and you know who I’m referring to, they would have already been complaining.”

The post was published in the early hours of Thursday (Jul 18) on Mr Yu’s Weibo page. While it has since been taken down, Chinese news outlets such as Phoenix Television have published their own reports with screengrabs of the post.

ITA has not confirmed whether the claimed testing frequency was accurate or applied to all teams, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.

In his post, Mr Yu also attached a table showing