OF all the doping stories that have dominated the sports Press over the past year or so, the most recent was the one that surprised me the least. Last week, The Times reported claims that positive dope tests from five Chinese swimmers had been covered up and earlier this week it emerged that two Chinese swimmers who tested positive for clenbuterol, a muscle-building drug, have been issued with only warnings by their national federation rather than suspensions.

These reports are just the latest in a long line of allegations of doping in China. In 1993, a squad of Chinese female middle-distance and distance runners coached by Ma Junren and nicknamed Ma’s Army took the athletics world by storm, winning

six of the nine available medals at the World Championships. Just one year later, seven Chinese swimmers tested positive at the Asian Games — and at that year’s World Championships, China’s female swimmers came from relative obscurity to win 12 of the 16 gold medals on offer, prompting further suspicion of doping.

In 2012, a former doctor to the Chinese Olympic team claimed that doping was “rampant” in the country in the 1980s and in February of this year, a letter emerged signed by ten of Ma Junren’s athletes claiming that he had forcibly doped them, which is now under investigation. Even if these allegations prove to be true, it seems unlikely that there will be significant repercussions considering the time that has elapsed since the alleged malpractice took place.

There has, to date, been little recent evidence of systematic doping within China but suspicion remains easily aroused. At London 2012, Ye Shiwen won gold in the 200m and 400m individual medley, breaking the 400m world record in the process.

Many observers branded her performance dubious yet there was no evidence of nefarious practices other than her exceptional swims. And last year, 17-year-old swimmer Quig Wenyi, a double national youth champion, died suddenly. No autopsy was carried out which only added fuel to the fire that something was not right.

There are two sides to this; on one hand, it is grossly unfair to assume that every Chinese athlete who excels is doping just because his or her country has been at the centre of previous allegations. When 15 year-old Lithuanian, Ruta Meilutyte, won swimming gold at London 2012,

few questions were asked about the veracity of her swim.

Though I am not suggesting there

are actually any questions to answer in her case, does this apparent double-standard have anything to do with the fact that she is based in England? Almost certainly, even though her emergence onto the world scene was equally as stunning as Ye Shiwen’s.

On the other hand, there is the camp which believes that there is too many whispers to be convinced that Chinese athletes are playing by the rules.

I have heard many of these rumours first hand — and while none amount to concrete evidence, it is hard to ignore the constant background noise.

Chinese players dominated the badminton world when I competed — they won all five gold medals on offer

at London 2012 — and the suggestions that they were not being held to the standards that the rest of us, particularly Brits, were never abated.

The problem is that all the allegations I heard are anecdotal — from the rumour that the Chinese team manager threatened to pull all of his players out of a major tournament if any of them were drug tested, to each and every player displaying identical needle marks behind their knees, to tales of training camps taking place in the Chinese mountains where the squad was cut off from the outside world, it does little to engender confidence that the rumours of doping are completely false, yet there remains no evidence to the contrary.

There is also the rumour that Chinese children are given “vitamins” when they are coming through the junior system yet the children cannot identify exactly what they are taking. It may only be vitamin C but the Chinese culture dictates that if you are in a squad, you do as you are told. If you question the coach’s practices, you will be replaced by another player who will not show dissent.

Yet I realise that is completely unfair to cast aspersions when there is no hard evidence of systematic doping in China. There is something of an attitude in Britain that almost all of our athletes are holier than thou and the odd one who gets caught for doping is just a bad apple. It was demonstrated perfectly when Paula Radcliffe’s name was brought into the Sunday Times investigation which found that some athletes, including Radcliffe, had “abnormal blood values”. She was later exonerated. My instinct was always that Radcliffe is clean yet I sense that we would not have been quite so quick to declare her innocence had she not been British.

It seems likely that there will be an investigation into Chinese sport at some point but whether there is any evidence found of state-sponsored doping remains to be seen. The plethora of rumours could prove to be unfounded or there could prove to be no smoke without fire. If it is the latter, it could be even more shattering news than the recent Russian revelations.