According to News Corp., China’s security services believe that the contaminated beef that led to the failed drug test of two of its swimmers came from Australia.
The athletes, who were identified by the WADA as Chinese nationals, tested positive for a banned substance known as metandienone.
Regulators in China confirmed that the athletes were cleared after they found traces of metandienone in hamburgers.
Authorities in Australia were also looking into the matter.
In response to the allegations, Meat and Livestock Australia noted that the substance is not used in the production of beef.
This comes after Australia joined the calls for a review into the country’s swimming doping problem.
The country has been criticized for its record of drug use in sports.
Don Talbot, a prominent Australian coach, was one of the individuals who criticized the Chinese athletes’ suspicious performances during the 1990s.
According to the New York Times, one of the swimmers was Tang Muhan, who won a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics.
She was supposed to participate in a swimming event in Paris on Thursday.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has also launched an investigation regarding the contamination of meat in different countries.
According to WADA, there has been a spike in the number of cases involving contaminated meat products.
The agency noted that it was worried about how many cases were being closed without any sanction despite having evidence of contamination.
It also noted that there were multiple investigations regarding the positive tests, but no sanctions were issued due to what it referred to as an unusual method of contamination.
In addition to China, WADA noted that the US has also experienced a spike in cases involving contaminated meat products.
The agency criticized the media for blaming it for the issue, and it claimed that it was caught in the middle of a geopolitical crisis at the time.