Adam Peaty called on anti-doping authorities to “wake up and do your job” after China stormed to gold in the men’s 4x100m medley relay, and suggested his rival Qin Haiyang should be “out of the sport”.
Peaty was unable to sign off his third and potentially last Olympics with a second medal to add to his silver in the 100m breaststroke, as the Team GB quartet of Peaty, Duncan Scott, Matthew Richards and Oliver Morgan finished fourth.
China’s gold was claimed thanks to a sensational final leg by the 100m freestyle champion Zhanle Pan, taking his team from third into first ahead of the United States and France, but their performances in Paris have come under a cloud.
Before the Olympics, it was reported by the New York Times that the World Anti-Doping agency (Wada) took no action when 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for the banned performance enhancing drug trimetazidine (TMZ) in 2021.
The swimmers were allowed to compete at the Tokyo Olympics when Wada accepted the findings of a Chinese investigation that the results were due to contamination from a hotel kitchen, and 11 have competed in Paris.
Among them, Qin and Sun Jiajun raced in the 4x100m medley relay and while Pan was not implicated in the scandal his performances at the Olympics have come under question.
Peaty said he did not want to be “distracted” by the scandal during competition but did not hold back when asked about the two swimmers – Qin and Sun – in the China team who had appeared on the list of TMZ contaminated athletes reported before the Games.
He appeared to reference a further New York Times allegation that Qin returned a positive test for a different performance-enhancing drug in 2017 – which was blamed on contaminated food.
“One of my favourite quotes is there’s no point in winning if you are not winning fair,” Peaty said. “I think you know that true in your heart. If you touch [performance enhancing drugs] and you know you’re cheating, you’re not winning, right?
“For me, if you’ve been on that and you’ve been ‘contaminated’ twice I think as an honourable person you should be out of the sport. But we know sport is not that simple.
“I’ve also been asked about people who haven’t been on the contamination [list]. I don’t want to paint a nation or group a people with one brush. I think that’s very unfair.
“But there has been two cases of it and I think that is really disappointing. I’ve tried to keep out of the conversations for the benefit of the team. But I think the people that need to do their job, wake up and do your job.
“We’ve got to have faith in the system. But we also don’t [have faith in the system]. They’ve just got to be stricter. What I’ve said from the start is that it’s fraud. If you’re cheating, it’s fraud.”
“And it’s not just them. It’s whoever is in the race. I expect in my head whoever is in there has got to be fair. We did our best job as a team to do that.
“It may have been bronze [tonight], who knows. But I’m just happy to do my best and come away with silver. I did my best. I do want to be fair and I didn’t need anything to give me that. That’s what sport is.”
Peaty tested positive for Covid last Monday following his silver medal in the 100m breaststroke. His return was unable to lift Team GB to a final medal as China won gold ahead of the United States and France.
Peaty’s turn on the breaststroke, edging a thrilling duel with home star Leon Marchand, brought Great Britain ahead of the defending champions United States and France at the halfway mark.
But France’s Maxime Grousset pulled away at a raucous La Defence Arena to put the hosts in gold medal winning position before Pan’s electric 45.92 – faster than his world record – sealed victory ahead of Team USA.
The top three were separated by 0.92 seconds with Team GB a further second behind.
Peaty, 29. says he will return to a fourth Olympics if his “heart wants it” but admitted he may “step away from the sport after Paris”.
“I don’t know what the answer is,” he told the BBC. “If my family needs me, my family needs me. If they want me to do it… I don’t know. If your heart doesn’t want it, your heart doesn’t want it. We are going to enjoy today rather than worry about tomorrow.”
