Since China's athletes re-entered the international sporting arena, their many record-breaking performances have earned them the admiration of the rest of the world. But, in the process, they have also built up a less enviable reputation as persistent offenders in the use of performance enhancing drugs.
The latest scandal has flared at the World Swimming Championships in Perth. First, Yuan Yuan was banned for four years after 13 vials of human growth hormone were found in her luggage and her coach, Zhou Zhewen, was banned for 15 years. Then, on Wednesday, Wang Luna, Cai Huijue, Zhang Yi and Wang Wei tested positive for a diuretic used as a masking agent for anabolic steroids and were sent home. Their disgrace means that 26 mainland swimmers have now failed drugs tests since 1990 - more than the rest of the world combined.
Apart from the adverse publicity, the damage to the country's sporting image and the blow to the morale of innocent team members, the Perth incidents inevitably cast a shadow over past achievements. But, more vitally, it could scupper mainland hopes of hosting the Olympics. Having seen Beijing narrowly miss out to Sydney in the battle to host the millennium games, it was widely believed another mainland city would get the nod from the Chinese Olympic Committee to bid for the 2008 spectacular. The likelihood of that happening, though, appeared distant yesterday after International Olympic Committee chief Juan Antonio Samaranch hinted that the drug furore in Perth had hurt any mainland bid.
While mainland officials have condemned the Perth drug-takers, more has to be done if Chinese athletes are ever again to be judged on their merits and not on the guilt of others. China's sports bodies must themselves step up random testing and throw open their training camps to international inspection to prove to the sporting world that, far from conniving with the cheats, they are out to expose them.
The alternatives are stark - athletes forever associated with the stigma of drugs and a possible Olympics wrecked before they start by boycotts. Either way, the mainland ends up the loser.
