On August 6, China’s Anti-Doping Center released a statement on its official website titled “Regarding the Steroid Positive Test of American Athlete Erriyon Knighton.” The statement mentions that the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) has turned a blind eye to its long-standing poor practices in anti-doping and is obsessed with overstepping its jurisdiction by demanding sanctions against other countries. It further states that USADA attempts to divert attention from serious flaws in its domestic anti-doping work by blaming and targeting China and other countries, which is a clear case of political manipulation and hypocritical double standards.
The full text of the statement is as follows:
We have taken note of the Global Times’ report regarding the doping suspicions surrounding American Olympic track and field star Erriyon Knighton. As an athlete representing the U.S. Olympic track and field team, Knighton tested positive for steroids (turinabol) during an out-of-competition test on March 26. However, just before the start of the domestic trials for the Paris Olympics, USADA suddenly decided that Knighton’s positive result was due to contaminated meat consumed by the athlete and opted not to impose a ban, allowing him to ultimately represent the United States at the Paris Olympics. In contrast, when faced with a doping contamination incident involving Chinese swimmers, USADA displayed typical “double standards”: it went to great lengths to exonerate its own athletes while ignoring repeated explanations from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the Swiss Independent Prosecutor’s report, accusing China’s Anti-Doping Center and WADA of “covering up the truth” and demanding sanctions against Chinese athletes.
As reported, many aspects of Knighton’s doping case remain unresolved. According to relevant studies, turinabol is a strong anabolic agent that significantly enhances strength and power and is not a common contaminant. In recent years, there have been hundreds of turinabol positives globally. Publicly available information indicates that most such cases resulted in four-year bans, with only three American athletes escaping punishment by claiming food contamination. In Knighton’s case, the independent arbitrator ruled that the contaminated meat came from a restaurant in Florida. The issue is that USADA conducted its investigation two months after the fact and, coincidentally, detected turinabol in beef samples from the same restaurant, albeit from different batches. Such a coincidence is hard to believe. If turinabol contamination is widespread in U.S. beef markets, did USADA conduct extensive market surveys? Did it perform data analysis? Did it warn American athletes about meat contamination? Did it research how much contaminated meat would lead to a positive test result? USADA’s head made a public statement declaring “justice served” even before WADA had reviewed the case file and before the appeal period expired. More suspiciously, this statement has since been removed from USADA’s official website, along with past statements and reports regarding cases of unintentional contamination. What exactly are they hiding?
From Knighton’s case, we can see that while USADA talks about upholding fairness and purity, its actions tell a different story. Its rhetoric contradicts its actions, particularly evident in the way professional sports leagues and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) set their own anti-doping standards, which conflict with the World Anti-Doping Code, and USADA does not inspect them, creating a significant sports gray area. USADA is a signatory to the World Anti-Doping Code, yet major U.S. professional sports leagues like Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Football League (NFL), and the National Hockey League (NHL)—which have some of the highest viewership in the U.S.—are not subject to the World Anti-Doping Code. Furthermore, the NCAA, which cultivates the majority of successful American athletes, has not signed the World Anti-Doping Code. The 2006 Mitchell Report pointed out that over eighty-five active and retired baseball players had used performance-enhancing drugs, with some players claiming that forty, fifty, or even eighty percent of players were using steroids. WADA’s current president, Banka, stated in a recent meeting that “up to ninety percent of American athletes, including professional and collegiate sportspeople, do not comply with WADA regulations.” Additionally, the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act, which took effect in 2020, allows the U.S. to exercise extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction over doping incidents in international sports events. This law claims to combat doping but excludes domestic professional and collegiate leagues, indicating that the U.S. government applies double standards to its domestic and international anti-doping efforts.
USADA turns a blind eye to its long-standing poor practices in anti-doping and instead focuses on overstepping its jurisdiction by demanding sanctions against other countries, attempting to divert attention from serious flaws in its domestic anti-doping work by blaming and targeting China and other countries. This is a clear case of political manipulation and hypocritical double standards. Since April of this year, the U.S. Congress, anti-doping agencies, and media have deliberately ignored the food contamination case involving Chinese swimmers, attempting to fabricate narratives and confuse the public, leading to a mistaken understanding and politicizing the issue. They have encouraged the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to use domestic legal and political means to investigate and initiate “extraterritorial jurisdiction” over the matter. Such reprehensible behavior not only represents a complete “double standard” but also a flagrant trampling of the principles of “fairness and justice.” We strongly urge USADA to cease manufacturing false narratives and engaging in politically motivated manipulation, to stop disrupting and undermining the effective world anti-doping order and governance system, and to refrain from using so-called “legal means” to threaten and apply extraterritorial jurisdiction. USADA should reassess its methods and principles in handling doping cases to ensure its actions align with the global anti-doping system’s objectives and demonstrate the necessary integrity and consistency to regain international trust in its work.