OTTAWA, April 22. /TASS/. The trimetazidine concentration in Russian ice skater Kamila Valieva was lower than in the Chinese swimmers, World Anti-Doping Agency General Counsel Ross Wenzel told reporters.

"With respect to the concentration in the Kamila Valieva case, and I believe it's public, it's in the decision, it was 2.1 nanograms per ml; the vast majority of the concentrations in this case were significantly lower than that, but the fundamental point is not that one," Wenzel said.

"The fundamental point is that in the Valieva case there was nothing to exclude that that was the end of an excretion, that the pharmacological dose of trimetazidine hadn't been taken several days before. In this case, the fluctuating negative and positive values of those athletes that were tested on multiple occasions effectively excluded that pharmacological dose scenario, so that's a significant difference with the Valieva case," he added.

On April 20, The New York Times reported that 23 Chinese swimmers who took part in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics tested positive for trimetazidine. Later, WADA said that it did not punish the Chinese athletes for violation of the rules ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, because it was unable to debunk the claims of the Chinese Anti-Doping Agency that the prohibited substance got into the athletes’ systems unintentionally.

The Chinese side claimed that the swimmers took the prohibited substance unintentionally and in small quantity, so no actions should be necessary against them. The Chinese Anti-Doping Agency’s investigation concluded that the incident happened because of spoiled food.

On January 29, the Court of Arbitration for Sports disqualified Russian ice skater Kamila Valieva for violation of anti-doping rules, satisfying WADA’s request for a four-year penalty for taking trimetazidine.