PARIS — At the heart of the anti-doping saga looming over the 2024 Olympics, and stoking a "fight" on the eve of the Games, is a mystery that might never be solved.
What we know is that, in 2021, 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for a banned substance and weren’t punished.
What we don’t know is how the substance, trimetazidine (TMZ), entered their bodies.
That is the gray area in which anti-doping officials have clashed in recent months. Chinese authorities and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) attributed the positive tests to contamination.