World Anti-Doping Agency says why Chinese swimmers were cleared despite positive tests for banned substance

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Twenty-three Chinese swimmers were given the OK to compete in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 despite testing positive for trimetazidine, a banned heart medication.

The World Anti-Doping Agency said that the swimmers' tests had come up positive due to "inadvertently being exposed to the substance through contamination," a claim initially brought by the Chinese Doping Agency.

"Ultimately, we concluded that there was no concrete basis to challenge the asserted contamination," WADA’s senior director of science and medicine Olivier Rabin said in a news release.

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General view of swimming lane markers at a pool. (Simon Bruty/Anychance/Getty Images)

The WADA said there had been "misleading information" that was spreading in the news, which led to their response.

The WADA said it had been given a tip by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency as early as 2020 — before this case arose — about allegations of doping cover-ups in China but that USADA never followed up with evidence.

However, the WADA says they "reviewed this case thoroughly" and "concluded that there was no concrete basis to challenge the asserted contamination."

U.A. Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart called the news of the Chinese positive tests "crushing."

"It’s even more devastating to learn the World Anti-Doping Agency and the Chinese Anti-Doping Agency secretly, until now, swept these positives under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world," Tygart said.

China relay team celebrateing their victory in the women's 4x200m freestyle relay final during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic