A former doctor for the Chinese Olympic team told German media that tens of thousands of Chinese athletes took performance enhancing drugs in the 1980s and 1990s as part of a systematic government doping scheme.

"There must have been more than 10,000 people involved," Xue Yinxian told public broadcaster ARD in a television interview first broadcast on Friday. "All international medals (won by Chinese athletes in that time) should be taken back."

Xue's claim of systematic doping contradicted previous statements by the Chinese government, which had denied any involvement in individual cases of Chinese athletes taking performance enhancing drugs.

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Chinese athletes have been suspected of using banned substances at multiple Olympic Games

Her claim also contradicted comments previously made by Chen Zhanghao, the Chinese Olympic team's chief doctor at the 1984, 1988 and 1992 Olympic Games. In 2012, Chen told the Australian daily The Sydney Morning Herald that "about 50'' Chinese athletes had taken various performance-enhancing drugs during his tenure.

'If you refused to dope, you had to leave'

Xue, who was the Chinese gymnastics team's chief medical supervisor in the 1980s, said Chinese authorities had "insisted that all sports teams had to use doping substances: football, volleyball, basketball, table tennis, badminton, track and field, swimming, diving, gymnastics, weightlifting."

"If you refused to dope, you had to leave the team," she said, adding "the youth-age group teams used the substances - the youngest were 11 years old."

"As long as you were not caught, you were a good athlete. The government only wanted to produce gold medals irrespective of the means," she told German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung (German language) in a separate interview.

Star athletes accused of doping Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson (center) was stripped of his 100 meter gold medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics when he tested positive for stanozolol. He admitted having used steroids when he ran his 1987 world record, so that was rescinded too. His main rival, US athlete Carl Lewis (right), tested positive in1988, but successfully blamed the traces of banned stimulants on cold medication.

Star athletes accused of doping Jailed for lying about doping US track and field world champion and Olympic gold medalist Marion Jones forfeited all prizes dating back to 2000, admitting in 2007 that she’d been doping that far back. She confessed to lying about it to a grand jury investigating performance-enhancer creations by the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO), which supplied more than 20 top athletes, and was sentenced to six months in jail.

Star athletes accused of doping Katrin Krabbe The German sprint star and world champion in 1991 for the 100 and 200 meter distance tested positive for clenbuterol in 1995. A comeback attempt failed.

Star athletes accused of doping Suspicious toothpaste Dieter Baumann, German 5000-meter Olympics champion of 1992, later tested positive for Nandrolone and was banned for two years in 1999, causing him to miss the 2000 Sydney Olympics. He argued that someone had contaminated his toothpaste. He came back in 2002, at the age of 37, to win silver over 10,000 meters at the European Championships in Munich.

Star athletes accused of doping Running away to avoid testing Ekaterini Thanou and her training partner Konstantinos Kenteris failed to attend a drugs test on the eve of the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics. Later that day they were hospitalized, claiming they’d had a motorcycle accident. They withdrew from the Games, and investigators ruled the accident had been staged and they were criminally charged with making false statements to authorities.

Star athletes accused of doping Professional cycling's most notorious The most high-profile case in professional cycling: The US Anti-Doping Agency in 2012 found Lance Armstrong guilty of using performance enhancing drugs, stripped the seven-time Tour de France winner of his titles and banned him for life. In January 2013, Armstrong told US television personality, Oprah Winfrey, how he lied without detection for years between 1998 and 2004.

Star athletes accused of doping The risk of drug abuse Argentine football legend Diego Maradona tested positive for Ephedrine at the soccer World Cup in the US in 1994 and was excluded from the tournament. Three years earlier he had been found to have taken cocaine.

Star athletes accused of doping Still claiming innocence Claudia Pechstein is the most successful Olympic speed skater, ever. In 2009, she was accused of blood doping and banned from all competitions for two years. She claimed an inherited condition was the reason for irregular levels of reticulocytes but failed to win a long legal battle. She returned to competition in 2011, winning bronze in the 5000 meter event at that year’s World Championships.

Star athletes accused of doping Russian athletes notorious for doping Russia’s Svetlana Krivelyova won shot put gold at the 1992 Olympics and the World Championship in 2003. At the 2004 World Indoor Championships she was awarded gold after the winner was stripped of her title for failing a drugs test. In Athens, 2004, she won bronze only after the winner was disqualified for doping. A re-test then found drugs in Krivelyova’s, and the medal was rescinded.

Star athletes accused of doping Gert Thys won his case South African long-distance runner Gert Thys entered World Championships and Olympic Games. He won the 2006 Seoul International Marathon but was disqualified after testing positive for the steroid Norandrosterone. Thys contested the ban, pointing to laboratory errors: the same technician had analyzed both his samples, a breach of testing rules. In 2012 he was exonerated.

Star athletes accused of doping Most recent scandal Jamaican former 100-meter world record holder Asafa Powell, his teammate, three-time Olympic medalist Sherone Simpson, US American sprinters Tyson Gay and Veronica Campbell-Brown all failed doping tests this summer. Powell was one of the world’s most-tested athletes in the run-up to the London 2012 Summer Olympics. He is exploring legal options. Author: Rina Goldenberg



Xue said the extent of the problem became apparent after a colleague told her about the unhealthy physical effects certain drugs were having on younger male athletes.

She was eventually fired from the Chinese Olympic team during the 1988 Olympic Games in the South Korean capital Seoul after she refused to use a banned substance on a gymnast, but continued working as a doctor for other sporting organizations in China until she retired in 1998.

'They wanted to silence me'

The 79-year-old fled China with her son, Yang Weidong, and his wife in 2015 and all three have since sought asylum in Germany after Xue spoke about "rampant" Chinese doping practices in an interview with The Sydney Morning Heraldin 2012.

"Anyone against doping damaged the country and anyone who endangered the country now sits in prison," she told ARD.

Xue said government authorities tried to intimidate her before leaving China to ensure she would not talk.

"Once, eight people came to my home. They wanted me not to speak about the use of doping substances. They urged me to give up. I said 'I can't do that.' They wanted to silence me," she said.

The Chinese government refused to comment on Xue's allegations after ARD and the Süddeutsche Zeitungasked for a response.

Safety in Germany?

Xue and her son Yang have been waiting four months for Geman authorities to approve their asylum requests, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Yang claimed the family had been followed by a Chinese agent near to their asylum center after they first arrived. Shortly thereafter, the family was assigned to a new accommodation.

Speaking of his mother's actions to uncover the state-backed doping program, Yang said, "the government is afraid that these people are pronouncing the truth."