US swimmer Katie Ledecky celebrates breaking her own world record for the women's 400m freestyle at Rio 2016. Photo: AFP
Seven-times Olympic gold medallist Katie Ledecky says her faith in the anti-doping system ahead of the Paris Games is at an all-time low amid the widely-criticised handling of failed drug tests in Chinese swimming.
In excerpts from an interview with CBS News Sunday Morning that will air this weekend, Ledecky spoke about the 23 Chinese swimmers who avoided sanctions after testing positive for a banned substance months before the Tokyo Olympics held in 2021.
"It's hard going into Paris knowing that we're going to be racing some of these athletes," said Ledecky. "And I think our faith in some of the systems is at an all-time low.
"You try not to think too much about [it] when you're actually racing. And the best thing to do is to just go out there and try to win.
"It's tough when you have in the back of your head that it's not necessarily an even playing field."
Katie Ledecky celebrates gold and a world record in the Women's 1500m freestyle final, Russia, 2015. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
China's anti-doping agency cleared the swimmers of wrongdoing before the Tokyo Olympics, deciding the positive tests were the result of being inadvertently exposed to the banned substance through contamination.
A report determined all the swimmers who tested positive were staying at the same hotel where traces of a banned heart medication called trimetazidine (TMZ) were discovered in the kitchen.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which accepted China's finding in 2021, said in April it would launch an independent review of the case amid pressure from athletes and national anti-doping authorities.
WADA vigorously defended its initial handling of the case and said it had no evidence to question China's finding that the swimmers were inadvertently contaminated by TMZ.
"In this instance, it doesn't seem like everything was followed to a T. So, I'd like to see some accountability here," Ledecky said in the interview.
"I'd like to see some answers as to why this happened the way it did. And I'd really like to see that steps are taken for the future so that we can regain some confidence in the global system."
The Paris Olympics, which would be Ledecky's fourth, begin on 26 July.
- Reuters