\n<\/p>\n
Whenever a suspicion of doping arises in an Olympics, attention can shift quickly from the athletes who won gold, silver and bronze medals to the ones who missed out.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, The New York Times published an investigation<\/a> into an unreported case in which 23 top Chinese swimmers tested positive for a powerful banned drug in 2021, only months before the Tokyo Olympics. The swimmers \u2014 who made up about half of the Chinese swimming team at those Games \u2014 were cleared by China\u2019s antidoping authorities and the World Anti-Doping Agency and allowed to compete.<\/p>\n The episode has not only alarmed experts in the antidoping community, but also raised other questions about athletes who tested positive, and what comes next: Which athletes? Which races?<\/p>\n And what about the medals they won in them?<\/p>\n For now, the answer \u2014 both for the Chinese athletes and the dozens of swimmers who finished behind them, on and off the medals stand \u2014 is that nothing has changed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n By comparing the names of the 23 swimmers who tested positive with results from the Games, The Times identified five events in which Chinese swimmers who had tested positive for a banned substance won medals:<\/p>\n The third day of the Tokyo Games opened with the first of four medals for Zhang Yufei, a silver. Torri Huske of the United States was fourth, missing out on the first Olympic medal of her career by one-hundredth of a second.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Three days later, Zhang claimed her second medal \u2014 and first gold \u2014 with an Olympic-record time. The Americans Regan Smith and Hali Flickinger touched the wall more than a second behind to claim silver and bronze.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Just over an hour after winning an individual gold, Zhang helped China win a relay gold. China\u2019s time, a world record, was nearly half a second faster than that of the United States team. The Americans also broke the previous world record but went home with the silver.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Wang Shun became only the second Chinese man to win an individual swimming gold.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Britain set a world record in winning the mixed event, which was being held at the Olympics for the first time. But China\u2019s team edged Australia to win the silver, delivering Zhang\u2019s fourth and final medal of the Tokyo Games.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Chinese antidoping officials and the World Anti-Doping Agency, the global authority that oversees national drug-testing programs, defended their actions in handling the case of the pre-Olympic doping positives in statements to The Times this week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n China said it had acknowledged the positive tests and notified WADA. But in a report created by China\u2019s antidoping agency and quietly submitted weeks before the Olympics, the Chinese authorities said their investigators concluded that the swimmers had ingested the banned substance unwittingly and in tiny amounts, and that no action was warranted.<\/p>\n WADA, citing \u201ca lack of any credible evidence\u201d to challenge China\u2019s version of events, defended its decision not to take further action. It called any criticism unsubstantiated, even though it took a far harder line<\/a> in a case involving a Russian figure skater only months later.<\/p>\nWomen\u2019s 100-meter butterfly<\/h2>\n
Women\u2019s 200-meter butterfly<\/h2>\n
Women\u2019s 200-meter freestyle relay<\/h2>\n
Men\u2019s 200-meter individual medley<\/h2>\n
Mixed 4×100-meter medley relay<\/h2>\n