Michael Phelps Says Swimmers Caught Doping Should Get Lifetime Ban

Former Olympic swimming champion Michael Phelps is interviewed on the pool deck ahead of the evening session at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Nanterre, France, on July 28, 2024. (Matthias Schrader/AP Photo/)

Swimming legend Michael Phelps has renewed his advocacy for tougher punishments against doping, calling for a permanent ban for swimmers who test positive for banned substances.

“If you test positive, you should never be allowed to come back and compete again, cut and dry,” the 23-time Olympics champion said Tuesday during a Paris press conference organized by his longtime sponsor Omega. “I believe one and done.”

Phelps’s comments come as past doping allegations surround China’s swimming team. In April, The New York Times published an investigation revealing that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive for trimetazidine, a banned heart medication, months before the COVID-delayed Tokyo Olympics began in July 2021. China’s 30-member swimming team claimed six medals—three of them gold—at the Japanese event.

All of the swimmers were cleared by the China Anti-Doping Agency (CHINADA), which blamed contaminated food at a hotel kitchen. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) later confirmed the basic details of the report but appeared unwilling to hold CHINADA accountable for failing to disclose the positive tests, as required under anti-doping rules.

The revelation of past positive drug tests involving Team China has drawn much skepticism over the sport’s integrity at the Paris Games, where nine of those swimmers won medals. The widespread concerns of a potential Chinese doping cover-up also cast a shadow on the record-shattering victory of Pan Zhanle, who was not among the 23 swimmers implicated in The New York Times’s story.

Phelps echoed those concerns, arguing that the Chinese swimmers who tested positive should have been barred from competing at all.

“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,” he said. “If you’re taking that risk, then you don’t belong in here.”

Phelps added he believes some of his competitors were doping during events at the five Olympics where he won a total of 28 medals.

“I don’t think I ever competed in an even playing field or a clean field,” he said. “But that’s out of my control.”

Phelps has been an outspoken anti-doping advocate since retiring from competitive swimming after the 2016 Rio Olympics. In June, he testified at a congressional hearing, confronting WADA over alleged cheating among Chinese swimmers ahead of the Tokyo Games.

“I urge you, members of Congress, to engage in the fight against doping,” Phelps said. “We can uphold the values of fairness and integrity that are the cornerstone of Olympic and Paralympic sport, to ensure that every athlete, regardless where they’re from, has the opportunity to compete fairly and achieve their dreams.”

Joining Phelps at the hearing was Travis Tygart, chief executive of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, who suggested putting conditions on American funding to the international group.

In 2023, Washington provided WADA with more than $3.4 million, accounting for 15 percent of the money the Montreal, Canada-based organization received from world governments. Despite its contribution, the United States does not have a representative on WADA’s 42-member governing board.

In comparison, China last year gave WADA about $714,000, but has two votes in the organization’s highest decision-making body.

In the wake of the Chinese swimmer controversy, WADA has portrayed The New York Times’s report as part of a broader, politically driven effort by the United States to attack China.

“The politicization of Chinese swimming continues with this latest attempt by the media in the United States to imply wrongdoing on the part of WADA and the broader anti-doping community,” WADA said in a statement.

“As we have seen over recent months, WADA has been unfairly caught in the middle of geopolitical tensions between superpowers but has no mandate to participate in that.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.