Olympic champion Michael Phelps weighed in on the latest doping scandal, following the conclusion of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
“If you test positive, you should never be allowed to come back and compete again, cut and dry,” Michael Phelps said in a media availability in Paris, reported by the AP. “I believe one and done.
“If everybody is not going through that same testing, I have a serious problem because it means the level of sport is not fair and it’s not even. If you’re taking that risk, then you don’t belong in here.”
His comments came in response to the latest doping scandal, surrounding members of the Chinese team.
The World Anti-Doping Agency and World Aquatics acknowledged that 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for a banned substance ahead of the Tokyo Olympics -with nine of those swimmers winning medals.
Another issue was the results were not made public until media reports were released this year.
Both organizations accepted the explanation that the positive tests were caused by tainted food.
Phelps spoke at a media availablity by Omega, one of his sponsors, about his own experience with testing.
“People called me a cheater throughout my career,” he said during a wide-ranging media availability put on by one of his sponsors, Omega. “I subjected myself to do more testing – blood and urine – weekly. Why? For the reason that I could say I’m not cheating, and I am clean and here are the results.
“I did it the clean way. I won 23 Olympic gold medals the clean way. It can be done.”
But Phelps also said he believes the sport hasn’t been fully clean.
“I don’t think I ever competed in an even playing field or a clean field,” Michael Phelps said. “I have some speculations of some athletes that I competed against that I thought they were [doping]. But that’s out of my control.”
Phelps won 28 Olympic medals in his career that began in 2000 in Sydney and concluded in Rio in 2016.
He was outspoken about doping during his career and has continued the fight in his retirement.
“What has to happen is everybody has to come together and figure out one way to test everybody all over the world. Period,” Michael Phelps said. “And if you test positive, you should never be allowed to come back and compete again.
“It’s not right. I stand for that and I will always stand for that. … “Keep the Olympics about integrity.”
strange, they don’t bring up global west country, Australia’s swimmers (caught, punished, then reduced sentence and metaled in Paris) or gymnasts, track&field, at all. Also, so many athletes “have asthma” these days ..w/persmission to take XYZ drug that IS on the list of drugs not allowed. .strange. But there should be EQUAL treatment and EQUAL number of tests per athlete. A few sore losers in the men’s 100 free final and not in the final. Has anyone questioned Katie in her distance events? Dared to trash her on social media? NO. Not always but sometimes, the one who is cheating on his wife is the one accussing her of that very thing. It’s called projection. A couple of side notes, I do question gender manipulation. Gender DNA testing should be required for all athletes in the female category for all sports worldwide,by age 13. . blind testing. To discourage designer babies; XXY or MTF from birth, born a boy but announced, “It’s a girl” w/surgeries & added hormones to follow. There’s more than one way to cheat. Let’s test ALL living athletes that hold or held records as well. And also punishing athletes by not allowign them to compete bcuz your don’t like their leaders is using said athletes as pons. .there should NOT be a place in the Olympics for any of that. But apparantly certain countries committing/funding/instigating GENOCIDE, starting wars, slaughtering civilians & their societies t them steal their land and resources is perfectly OK bcuz the IOC is basically NATO or at least takes marching orders from them. too much?