Photos of the U.S. women’s 4x100-meter medley relay team at the 2024 Paris Olympics emerged in Chinese-language social media posts alongside a claim that they provide evidence of doping before the competition. The posts point to the athletes’ unusually flushed faces in the images as supposed proof of their claim.
But the claim is false. An official at a doping regulator told AFCL that none of the swimmers in the photos had committed a potential doping violation. A dermatology expert said a flushed face after intense exercise is a normal response, resulting from increased blood flow and oxygen delivery to the muscles due to the widening of blood vessels during physical activity.
The photos of the U.S. women's 4x100-meter medley relay team were shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, as well as the Chinese social media platform Weibo.
The photos show Regan Smith, Lilly King, Gretchen Walsh, and Torri Huske, with red faces.
“They took drugs and then their faces turned like a purple eggplant,” the claim reads.
Comments on the posts suggest that many online users were misled by the claim.
“They cannot continue such performance if they keep engaging in doping,” one user commented.
“They are now used to taking drugs to win. Asians won’t ever be able to win them,” another said.
But the claim is false.
No record of doping violations
A spokesperson of the International Testing Agency – the organization responsible for ensuring the adherence of athletes to doping regulations – told AFCL that none of the four swimmers had committed a doping violation.
The spokesperson said some of the information about such violations was “rumors” that was “scientifically unfounded”, adding that any such incident would be followed by a temporary ban from competition accompanied by a mandatory public statement.
Possible causes of facial redness
Adam Friedman, a professor of dermatology at George Washington University, said that a flushed face after intense exercise is normal, resulting from increased blood flow and oxygen delivery to the muscles due to the widening of blood vessels during physical activity.
When asked why some athletes appear especially red-faced, Professor Friedman noted that this might be due to an overly sensitive nervous system, which can become overstimulated by the expanded blood vessels.
He also pointed out that variations in skin color and thickness could make a person's face appear even redder as their body temperature rises, with lighter skin tones and thinner skin more susceptible to this redness.
Previous doping controversy
Claims of U.S. Olympians skirting doping regulations have appeared before. In 2016, for instance, the Russian hacking group Fancy Bear infiltrated the World Anti-Doping Organization’s database and subsequently released the personal health records of 41 U.S. Olympians, revealing that those athletes had been allowed to take banned substances under medical exemptions granted for specific therapeutic purposes.
Recently, a wave of accusations from Chinese online users has suggested that the U.S. team may be abusing these medical exemptions to bypass doping reporting requirements.
One particularly widely shared video and post by Shen Yi, a professor at China’s Fudan University, amplified this rhetoric by demanding that a list of U.S. Olympic swimmers who applied for medical exemptions be made public.
In response to AFCL inquiries about which U.S. swimmers have been granted such medical exemptions, both the International Testing Agency and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency said that they could not disclose these records, as they are protected under strict medical confidentiality.
But both agencies emphasized that any application for medical exemptions undergoes a “rigorous and independently assessed” review.
Exemptions “are not granted if not medically necessary” and a review process thoroughly examines any potential misuse of the exemptions to gain an unfair competitive advantage, according to the International Testing Agency.
Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Shen Ke and Taejun Kang.
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