In one case, a former national champion was so impoverished after retirement that she ended up toiling in a public bathhouse. She grew a beard, which she said was the result of a doping regimen forced upon her as a young athlete.

In 2017, after old samples were re-examined, three of China’s four women’s weight lifting golds at the 2008 Beijing Olympics were revoked because the tests found banned substances.

Doping is rampant in weight lifting, and China is hardly the only country to have been caught. But an individual making the decision to take drugs is not the same as children being directed to do so by the state.