China ready to cooperate with WADA in regular compliance review after 'doping' row

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Beijing, April 26 (IANS) The China Anti-Doping Agency (CHINADA) will actively cooperate with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in the coming regular compliance review and provide assistance where needed, it said here on Friday.

WADA decided to send a compliance audit team to China to assess the current state of its anti-doping program as part of the Agency's regular compliance monitoring program at its Executive Committee (ExCo) meeting on Thursday in Montreal, Canada.

"The audit is part of WADA's regular compliance monitoring program to ensure compliance with the Code," CHINADA said in a statement. "Previous compliance reviews of such kind also took place in 2017 through a compliance audit and in 2022 through a Code Compliance Questionnaire (CCQ), where we got professional guidance from WADA to further improve our work."

"CHINADA will actively cooperate with the coming audit by WADA, and provide assistance where needed," it said.

A total of 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for an "extremely low concentration" of trimetazidine (TMZ) at a national swimming event in 2021 after inadvertently being exposed to the substance through contamination, reports Xinhua.

After WADA's Science Department and external legal counsel reviewed this case thoroughly, it accepted CHINADA's conclusion that "the athletes would be held to have no fault or negligence."

"Since its establishment in 2007, CHINADA has been carrying out its work in strict accordance with the Code and International Standards with a 'Zero Tolerance' attitude towards doping," CHINADA said.

"In the trimetazidine (TMZ) contamination cases in swimming in 2021, CHINADA, rigorously and objectively, initiated a thorough and comprehensive investigation immediately with scientific methods.

"Based on the findings of the investigation, results of environmental samples, combined with conclusions of scientific experiments, expert opinions and other evidence, including the prolonged and intensive testing records and analysis results of the athletes involved, it was finally decided that the Adverse Analytical Findings (AAFs) for TMZ were an isolated mass incident caused by athletes' unknowing consumption of food contaminated with TMZ when they were participating in the event."

WADA also announced after its ExCo meeting that it will invite Swiss independent prosecutor Eric Cottier to review its handling of the no-fault contamination case involving 23 swimmers from China in 2021.

CHINADA called WADA's decision "a clear demonstration of fairness, openness and transparency."

--IANS

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