There has been much talk about anti-doping on the pool deck this week. Dozens of swimmers have expressed concerns about the binary discussion surrounding recent positive tests by Chinese swimmers and the ongoing question-marks surrounding the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada). British breaststroke champion Adam Peaty spoke for many swimmers when he said: “You definitely want a fair game, you want to win fair and be around people who do the same and live by the same values.”
But one swimmer has kept a notable silence. Shayna Jack’s experience underscores the complexities of the anti-doping system, the individual injustices occasioned by blanket rules and presumptions of guilt. Above all, her comeback represents a remarkable feat of perseverance.
On Sunday, in the opening race of the final night of action at La Défense Arena, the 25-year-old Jack will swim for gold in the women’s 50m freestyle. Jack has already collected two relay gold medals and an individual fifth place finish. But if she wins the 50m, it will be a crowning achievement and the end of a remarkable redemption arc after going “through hell” to return to the pinnacle of the sport. There is no doubt about it: Shayna Jack is back.
In 2019, Jack was an emerging star in the Australian swim program when she undertook an out-of-competition anti-doping test. Two weeks later, at a training camp in Japan, she was notified the test had come back positive for a banned substance, Ligandrol. Swimming Australia announced she had been provisionally suspended, Jack flew home and lawyered up, denying deliberately ingesting any prohibited substance, insisting any consumption had been accidental.
Anti-doping is an arms-race, between cheating athletes and nefarious doctors at the cutting edge of potential performance enhancements, and authorities around the world desperately trying to keep up. With sporting integrity paramount, lest public confidence be undermined, the World Anti-Doping Code seeks to level the playing field. It is a cardinal rule of the code that if a substance is in an athlete’s sample, they are presumed culpable.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport ultimately accepted Jack’s submissions that she had not intentionally consumed the drug, and that its presence in her system was likely the result of contamination. The arbitrator even went out of his way to praise Jack’s witness testimony. It was the best case scenario, but it still saw the swimmer banned for two years – reduced from four, because there had been no intent.
All of which adds a wrinkle to some of the anti-doping discourse in Paris. Some of the allegations of procedural irregularities in the process that saw China’s 23 swimmers avoid sanction after testing positive for a different performance-enhancing drug, TMZ, are serious and have not been adequately explained. Those swimmers were treated very differently to Jack; they were never provisionally suspended and the positive tests only became public following investigative reporting. Wada has questions to answer.
But Jack’s case shows the need for more sophisticated discussion around culpability for suspected inadvertent consumption or environmental contamination. Another Chinese anti-doping positive to become public during the Games – allegedly involving contaminated meat – raised more eyebrows. But as one observer noted, “[Jack’s] involvement at these Games is a story of perseverance. It is hypocritical to hold [the Chinese swimmer] to a different standard.” Jack’s case shows these matters are rarely black and white.
Three years ago, on the opening morning of finals action at the Tokyo Olympics, the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay team – which had previously featured Jack – was going for gold. Jack was 7,000km away, on the outskirts of Brisbane at Australia Zoo.
“I spent that day trying to get out,” she recently recalled. “I still was tempted to watch – I wanted to watch the girls and cheer them on, I love those girls, it was mixed emotions, it was joy for them, but it was also envy that I couldn’t be there.”
Even without Jack, the relay squad won gold. For the banned swimmer, watching from afar was painful but it only fuelled Jack’s inner motivation. “I messaged each one of them after,” she added. “It was one of the moments that gave me that fight to come back. It actually drove that passion to come back and be part of this team.”
Through the dark times, Jack’s number one goal had been a spot on the Olympic team. She returned to competition at the 2022 world championships, winning medals there and at every world titles since. Her two relay golds in Paris have been further vindication. But on Sunday, she has one last swim at La Défense Arena – and the chance to win her first ever individual Olympic gold.
At the pool this week, Jack was asked whether the anticipation of this moment was what she had “held onto during the dark times.” Jack’s answer said it all. “Making the Olympic team was my first step – that was one of the most exciting moments,” she said. “I didn’t know where that was going to take me, and this is definitely a great start. But there’s still more things I want to achieve.” Jack is not taking anything for granted.
