Australian swim great Grant Hackett condemns Chinese doping scandal from Tokyo Olympics

An Australia Olympic great has condemned the cover up of a Chinese doping scandal from the Tokyo Games that has rocked world swimming and could see Australian women promoted from bronze to silver medallists.

Australian Olympic great Grant Hackett.

Olympic great Grant Hackett has condemned the cover up of a Chinese doping scandal from the Tokyo Olympics that has rocked world swimming and could see Australian women promoted from bronze to silver medallists.

This masthead revealed on Saturday that 23 out of the 30 person Chinese swim team returned adverse analytical findings to trimetazidine prior to the Tokyo Games but were cleared to race following a discreet investigation by Chinese authorities and World Anti-Doping Authority that determined the tests were contaminated.

The news came as word filtered out that US swimmers on the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay team were advised they could be promoted to gold medallists over a failed doping test involving a member of the Chinese gold medal team.

Grant Hackett has been a staunch anti-doping campaigner throughout his career. Picture: Wayne Taylor

Hackett, a staunch anti-doping campaigner throughout his entire career, said the lack of transparency on this issue from authorities was outrageous and led to suspicions of double standards.

“You can’t come out and obviously tarnish everyone as a drug cheat immediately but it’s very suspect given the circumstances and the fact it wasn’t disclosed and transparent that’s the thing that makes it more suspicious than anything else,” Hackett told this masthead.

“It’s like well if there is nothing to hide why aren’t we disclosing that there was a process undertaken, that there was people that essentially tested positive but there was contamination so there was nothing to see here and there was follow up tests perhaps around it and whatever else that needs to be discussed around the situation like that should have been revealed (at the time).

“The fact we are sitting here what three years later and it’s only coming out now through the wrong channels, not through official channels, just makes me feel very unsettled.”

Grant Hackett is one of Australia’s greatest swimmers.

Hackett said the clandestine process meant there are countless victims in this scenario - including Australian athletes.

Ariarne Titmus, Mollie O’Callaghan, Leah Neale, and Madi Wilson stood on the Tokyo podium to accept bronze medals, when they may actually be entitled to silver medals.

Meanwhile back home in Australia at the time, sprinter Shayna Jack was serving her own doping suspension for a case that was later proven to be a result of contamination.

However, unlike the Chinese athletes who were given the benefit of the doubt, Jack had to fight to save her reputation for two years and miss an Olympic Games.

There is a chance the bronze medals won by Ariarne Titmus, Emma McKeon, Madison Wilson and Leah Neale in the 4 x 200m Freestyle Relay could be upgraded to silver. Picture: Getty Images

That is time in her life - and a potential gold medal - she can never recover.

Hackett also says the Chinese swimmers themselves are now potentially victims too, innocently exposed because it may be a case of the cover up being worse than the crime.

“I actually feel for multiple athletes in this situation,” Hackett said.

“If no one has done anything wrong but there wasn’t a transparent process, those people are going to be tarnished with that brush.

“Then if there was people that were doing the wrong things and taking performance enhancing supplements or banned supplements, then what about the athletes sitting down with the wrong medals around their neck.

“The third layer there I go people like Shayna or other people who have had issues with contaminated samples or you know have gone through their difficult times in relation to these matters yet have had a different set of cards dealt to them versus someone else.

“That lack of consistency and what you call basically a double standard is the thing that makes you feel really uneasy.”

Asked if he had confidence in the anti-doping system, world champion Kyle Chalmers said he did - but with a caveat.

“Definitely in Australia. I love being an Australian, it is so frowned upon to be a doper in Australia. You get so hugely criticised and we hate people cheating,” he said.

“I’m proud to be Australian, proud to know everyone I race here is I believe to be clean.

“I am forever getting tested, so I hope that is happening globally too.

“I am getting random drug tests all the time, almost weekly at the moment so I hope that is what is going on everywhere.”

Originally published as Australian swim great Grant Hackett condemns Chinese doping scandal from Tokyo Olympics