U.S. swimmers are right to be angry over unpunished Chinese doping

Former Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, winner of a record 23 gold medals for Team USA, testified on Capitol Hill on Tuesday evening over failures by the World Anti-Doping Agency to properly enforce doping violations.

Phelps warned lawmakers that the Olympic Games are in danger of disappearing altogether if enhanced accountability is not restored soon, and he's not wrong.

In his opening statement, Phelps ripped WADA for their recent declination to further investigate or punish nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers who tested positive for banned substances before the 2021 Tokyo Games.

Instead, WADA blindly accepted the findings of Chinese doping officials, who claimed the athletes all mistakenly ate tainted food, and refused to send their own investigators, citing COVID restrictions. Some of those same swimmers went on to win medals in Tokyo and are expected to compete in Paris in July.

Suspicions that certain athletes are not competing cleanly or fairly could turn the Paris Games and all future editions into the latest battlefield in the misinformation wars, with event results constantly questioned and discredited governing bodies becoming powerless.

WADA has contributed to this potential dystopian scenario and undermined its own credibility by taking Chinese officials' word despite the country's history of state-sponsored Olympic cheating.

U.S. antidoping protocols allow no room for the same alleged political interference or athlete dishonesty suspected by China. Fellow Olympic swimmer Allison Schmitt described to lawmakers Tuesday how intense and important their testing is.

Geopolitics inevitably play a role at every Olympics, but the guardrails of antidoping regulations were designed to transcend international tensions.

Holding athletes accountable for cheating was, in theory, a global and apolitical goal. Phelps believes that's no longer possible under WADA leadership.

"As athletes, our faith can no longer be blindly placed in the World Anti-Doping Agency, an organization that continues to prove that it is either incapable or unwilling to enforce its policies consistently around the world," Phelps said.

In a contentious statement responding to Phelps and Schmitt's testimony, WADA irresponsibly called the Chinese swim controversy "a hot political issue" in the U.S., dismissing American athletes' outcry as purely part of the two countries' "tense relationship."

Those who historically have skirted international competition rules to win at all costs in the name of national glory are a scourge on the sporting world. Athletes deserve better from the bodies who claim their mission is to keep sports clean and fair.

Equal and strengthened enforcement is needed soon or Phelps' stark warning will ring true.

"If we let this slip any farther, the Olympic Games might not even be there," Phelps warned.