When is a doping scandal not a doping scandal? What about when the accused person is not Chinese?
In the second week of the Olympics, coming up, we will see the UK represented in Taekwando by Jade Jones, a two-time gold medalist looking for her third.
A little digging unearths a report about her. At dawn on a cold December day last year in the city of Manchester, UK, a doping control officer knocked on the door of Ms Jones' hotel room. It was 6:50 am.
The officer asked for a urine sample.
Ms Jones declined to provide one.
As all athletes know, refusing to provide a sample is an offence in itself, punishable by a ban of four years.
DEHYDRATED
At first, Jones said she couldn't provide a urine sample because she was dehydrated, so wasn't ready to use the toilet.
Such excuses have been used before – sometimes athletes do get dehydrated. Normally, the officer would stay with the athlete until she was ready to provide the sample.
But the athlete did not want her to stay and wait. The officer reminded her "approximately five times" of the consequences of a refusal to take such a test—several years of being banned from her sport. Ms Jones continued to refuse.
A phone call was made to the performance director of GB Taekwondo, who advised her to comply.
Again, she refused.
The officer went away with no sample.
CHANGE OF ISSUE
The athlete had a test 12 hours later, which she passed. But 12 hours is a long time in sports—and anyway, but that time, the issue had shifted. Her refusal had become the issue.
The anti-doping officers later received a letter from a lawyer saying their client had made a poor decision because she was dehydrated and it affected her mentally.
Did Jade Jones get the four-year ban? No. She got no punishment at all.
The officers decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. The UK's anti-doping agency approved her to continue competing without a break.
THE CHINESE COMPLIED
Now let's compare this to the Chinese case.
Chinese swimmers were told to take anti-doping tests one day in 2021. They complied, and 23 tested positive for the banned drug trimetazidine.
The athletes expressed puzzlement. They said they had not taken any drugs – but had all shared meals at the Huayang Holiday hotel in Shijiazhuang, a city in Hebei province.
Investigators duly investigated the hotel, and found trace elements of the drug in the kitchen – in the kitchen drains, in the extractor fan, and on spice containers.
But how did the substance get there? It is not normally used in foods.
Anti-doping specialists gave them the benefit of the doubt, and they were cleared without charge.
COVERAGE IS AN ISSUE
There does seem to be an issue here. The Chinese swimmers clearly complied fully with the testing rules, and were cleared – yet there are huge numbers of negative reports about them in the mainstream media, many throwing doubt on their innocence.
In contrast, the UK athlete clearly DID contravene the drug testing rules, but there's little coverage of her case. It is quite possible that there was no drug-taking in either instance.
One of the problems may be the effect of such unbalanced coverage over a long term. There is often massive coverage of Chinese cases, with far less coverage of other cases. So a general prejudice is built up of one side "usually" cheating while the other is assumed to play fair.
But perhaps the best position to take is the one which the drug-testing agencies have taken. If one side gets the benefit of the doubt, then the other should too. The advantage of that position is that it reflects the position of natural justice.
People are innocent until proven guilty.
Memories of media trickery:
For more commentary from Nury Vittachi, check out the YouTube video below:
by Nury Vittachi
Lai See(利是)
** The blog article is the sole responsibility of the author and does not represent the position of our company. **
The US–Iran war keeps everyone guessing. American forces made a show of force by blockading the Strait of Hormuz, with combat seemingly on the verge of breaking out — yet Trump suddenly shifted to a softer tone, suggesting both sides could return to the negotiating table within days and that extending the two-week ceasefire wasn't necessary. A deal may be within reach. But given his habit of reversing course, everyone would do well to wait and see before celebrating. While the Iranian situation churns with uncertainty, Ukraine's plight has quietly been forgotten — President Zelensky left to wither alone.
In an interview with German broadcaster ZDF, Zelensky made no effort to hide his distress. Since America launched its campaign against Iran, he said, Washington has completely lost interest in Ukraine. Not only have negotiations ground to a halt, but arms and military equipment deliveries have abruptly stopped — precisely as Russian forces are pressing their offensive hard, leaving Ukraine in a dangerously exposed position.
Iran stole America's attention — and Ukraine paid the price. Talks frozen, arms cut off, Zelensky vents to German TV.
For the first time, Zelensky has come to understand that America, for all its self-image as a superpower, simply cannot stretch across multiple fronts without showing its limits. When the "big boss" proves unreliable, the "junior partner" is left to fend for itself.
Washington's Attention Has Shifted
Zelensky has had his fill of being sidelined, and the bitterness has finally spilled over. He told ZDF that after the Iran war began, America's focus visibly shifted. Special Envoy Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Kushner — the two men who had been mediating between Washington and Moscow — are now "constantly in talks with Iran," leaving no bandwidth for Ukraine. As a result, peace talks between Russia and Ukraine have been frozen since late February, with no timeline in sight for their resumption.
What makes matters worse is that Trump, already overwhelmed by the Iran campaign, has quietly shelved the Russia-Ukraine file and stopped pressing Putin. Zelensky warned that without pressure, Russia has nothing to fear and will act with impunity. Putin has clearly read the situation. After a 32-hour Orthodox Easter ceasefire, Russian forces resumed their offensive immediately, seizing the opportunity to push for an advantage.
The Air Defence Crisis
The bigger crisis isn't the stalled talks — it's the weapons shortage. Zelensky pointed out that US military aid deliveries have slowed to a crawl, with air defence systems the most acute problem. Supplies of PAC-3 and PAC-2 interceptor missiles have shown serious gaps, and Ukraine could soon be left effectively "undefended," forced to watch helplessly as Russian missiles and drones fly in unchallenged.
Ukraine's air defences are running on empty. Interceptor missiles are critically short, and Russian strikes keep coming.
The reason Washington cannot deliver comes down to the Iran campaign itself. Since the war began, Iran has fired multiple missiles and drones at US military bases in Gulf states and at Israel. American forces have burned through enormous quantities of interceptor missiles countering these attacks, stockpiles are nearly depleted, and replenishment has no quick fix. The only option has been to rob Peter to pay Paul — redirecting air defence equipment destined for other countries to the Middle East, with Ukraine inevitably caught in the fallout.
Watching this crisis unfold, Zelensky is in a panic. Unless a US–Iran ceasefire materialises, there is little hope of American arms deliveries resuming. Ukraine has been forced to rely on itself, rushing to produce its own "FP-5 Flamingo" air defence missiles as a stopgap — though even that amounts to a distant rainstorm that cannot quench today's fire.
Adding insult to injury, Trump — in a bid to boost global oil supply and hold down rising prices — granted a 30-day sanctions waiver on Russia, allowing countries worldwide to purchase Russian oil and natural gas. The result: Russia pocketed an effortless €6 billion, turning the war into a windfall that helps fund its military campaign against Ukraine.
America Stepping Back From Europe
The "big boss" cooling on Zelensky is not entirely a matter of bandwidth. It also reflects a deliberate intent to distance America from Europe and leave the continent to clean up the Ukrainian mess on its own.
A recent development makes this attitude plain. According to Politico, War Secretary Hegseth will skip Wednesday's meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group — a forum that brings together defence ministers from over 50 pro-Ukraine nations — sending Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby in his place. Hegseth's snub signals clearly that the Trump administration no longer treats Ukraine as a priority.
Zelensky's predicament is a tragedy largely of his own making. He placed too much faith in the American "big boss," believing that with Washington firmly in his corner, he could go all-in against Russia. Today, he has finally learned the hard way: this "big boss" cannot manage multiple wars at once. Bogged down in Iran, America has no capacity left to care whether its "junior partner" sinks or swims.
Lai Ting-yiu
