Paris Olympics 2024: China reportedly interrogated Australian beef as cause for positive steroid tests

China reportedly interrogated Australian beef imports as a potential cause for two swimmers testing positive to a banned storied in 2022.

A report from News Corp on Wednesday said Chinese state security services had tested Australian beef imports as part of an investigation into how Tang Muhan and He Junyi returned positive tests to metandienone in 2022.

But the Australian meat industry has rubbished the claims, with a Meat and Livestock Australia statement saying “menthandienone is not used in any capacity in Australian beef production or in any veterinary medicine”.

The spotlight on China has been intense in the lead-in to the Games and brightened further earlier this week, when the World Anti-Doping Agency confirmed the two Chinese swimmers were secretly given 12-month bans.

Muhan, who is set to compete in the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay later this week, and Junyi, who is not competing in Paris, were later cleared in 2023, with the Chinese regulator ruling tainted meat was the source of the positive tests.

In a statement released earlier this week, WADA said the swimmers’ case was reviewed after two other Chinese athletes — a BMX rider and a shooter — also returned tests positive for “trace amounts” of metandienone.

“(China Anti-Doping Agency) also analysed the athletes’ nutritional supplements and conducted hair tests, which were negative. Significantly, both the swimmers provided negative doping control samples in the days before and after the single trace positive,” the statement reads.

“Following its investigation, CHINADA concluded that the four cases were most likely linked to meat contamination and, in late 2023, closed the cases without asserting a violation, with the athletes having remained provisionally suspended throughout that time.”

A lack of transparency over the issue has added to a chorus of criticism for the regulator, who have been accused of being too willing to accept contamination as a cause for positive Chinese tests.

Zac Stubblety-Cook, who won silver in the 200m breaststroke on day five, responded to reports before the Games that 23 Chinese swimmers had returned positive tests for trimetazidine before the Tokyo Olympics which were later chalked off for contamination by saying WADA had “failed”.

Australians have been among China’s fiercest critics over the issue, with now-retired long-distance swimmer Mack Horton famously refusing to shake hands or share the podium with Chinese rival Sun Yang, who was fighting allegations of destroying evidence during a random drug test which later saw him handed a more than four-year ban, at the world championships in 2019.

Meat and Livestock Australia data showed China imported around 200,000 tonnes of Australian beef in 2023.