Dirk Lange Responds To Telegraph Article Claiming He is Working With Chinese Dopers

dirk-lange-2014
Photo Courtesy: Dirk Lange Personal Training

Yesterday, a widely-distributed article by The Daily Telegraph was published in which the paper claimed that banned Chinese coach Zhou Ming was in Turkey at the Gloria Sports Centre to work alongside German swim coach Dirk Lange with some Chinese swimmers.

Zhou was banned for life by FINA for repeated doping violations, and has been seen on deck coaching with some regularity since the sanctions.

Today, Lange came out swinging on his training group’s Facebook page, categorically denying nearly every piece of the article.

Lange completely denies Zhou being any part of training, and also includes a statement from the Chinese Swimming Association stating that Zhou was not in Turkey. Lange also explains that there is nothing hidden about the training as teams from Sweden and Germany are both in Turkey as well.

Lange also addresses claims that he refused a drug test, stating that he’d already been retired and did not see the point in taking the test.

Lange also states that he feels that the original article was likely driven by the fact that his company is working with the Chinese Swimming Association, which is a main competitor of Australian Swimming.

Dirk Lange Personal Training Group Press Release:

Today we were planning on celebrating the successful results of our team at ECH in London; Hoping to congratulate our swimmers on setting 4 new nationals records, finals and many new personal bests.

However, there is an article from other side of the world, that we feel we need to pay attention to today. We feel pleased that we, specifically Dirk Lange, is the point of interest of Australian media these days. But we really don’t understand the real reason of their need to attack his person with such a aggression.

Is it the fact because we are successfully cooperating with China Swimming Association, the main competitor of Australian Swimming? We dont know…What is even more disturbing is the fact, that the story has been built of net of lies and questionable facts. At no point in time were we ever given the opportunity to respond to any of the allegations in this article.

This entire article gives us the feeling the journalist’s intention is to relate the name of Dirk Lange to doping in swimming world.

We feel obliged to correct some of the “facts” and “statements” as presented in Australian Daily Telegraph article.

The Daily Telegraph: “Chinese coach Zhou Ming, who is supposed to be serving a life ban, is said to be working with some of the China’s top swimmers after they moved their pre-Olympic camp to Turkey”.

The coach Zhou Ming has never been in Belek and has no swimmers there. The Team, which training in Belek at the time is not in hiding. It has been widely publicized on our various social media platforms that the Chinese Team would be training in Belek. In fact, we would be pleased and welcoming if Australian media would choose to visit them anytime.

The Daily Telegraph: “In Turkey you are going to attract coaches who want to be undetected and swimmers who want to be undetected.”

No team is hiding in Turkey. This training camp is not a secret. The article implies that if swimmers want to dope then they go to Turkey. Such a general statement without at least providing the facts, we believe is unethical reporting. Should journalists not be investigating facts before publishing their stories? Maybe if the The daily Telegraph had put some time into research or even taken the time to speak to us, they would have understood that the entire Chinese team planned to train in Graz, Austria, but could not get a Visa for that particular time.

What has not been reported is that Chinese swimmers are known to be in Belek by the relevant Drug Testing Authorities. The fact is that the Chinese swimmers have been subjected to testing while in Belek. Again, how could they be subjected to testing if they were in hiding at this “discreet” location?

What has also not been reported in your article is that the Swedish and German Teams are there right now. Based on the statement in your article, are these swimmers and coaches from these countries also looking to go “undetected” as Sweetenham has implied in his reference to Turkey?

The next statement which we need to correct and add some context to is that Dirk refused a drug test. This test was requested at the time when Dirk had already retired from competitive swimming and started to work as a coach and he did not see any sense of doing that anymore.

We are not paying any attention to comments of retired swimming coach Bill Sweetenham as his critical comments are known by many successful coaches. The message and comments from Sweetenham in this article will be studied by our lawyers after which they will consider whether to take further action regarding this matter.

We are open to have further discussion and answer any questions that the reporter of that article may have.

Statement from Chine Swimming Federation (Mr. Cui Dengrong):
1. Zhou Min has never been in Belek.
2. Swimmers of Mr. Zhou Min never been in Belek.
3. The reason we are training in Belek is due to Visa restriction. We wanted to train in Graz, but it was not possible to visit Graz twice in that particular time.
4. We have been tested constantly, also in Belek and Graz.
5. We take public relation seriously and we are shocked what the media is implying
6. We believe the best response is to focus on training and show , what we are capable to achieve

That is the last statement from us. Now we are fully focus to prepare our athletes for the Olympic Games, so that they may achieve the best results in Rio.

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Ivana Lange
Ivana Lange
7 years ago

Our official letter to Ms. Halloran, the autor of the article, you can see below:

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1020903041328498&id=205656186186525

Dirk Lange Personal Training GmbH

Our official letter to Ms.Halloran, the author of the article you can read here: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1020903041328498&id=205656186186525

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