Their haul (two golds, three silvers, and seven bronzes) represented an improvement over their total collection of nine in Tokyo. Naturally, we’re talking about the aquatic environment, as overall they won 89 medals, placing second behind the USA. This year, China leads the ranking with 47, 20 of which are gold.

The Chinese team landed in the French capital under a cloud of controversy, stemming from the New York Times revealing in April that 23 swimmers from the Asian giant had tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine (TMZ) before the Tokyo event three years ago. China revealed in its defense that the result was due to food contamination, a justification accepted by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

However, U.S. anti-doping authorities entered into a cold war with their Chinese counterparts, accusing WADA of covering up all the details and facts of the case, causing the scandal to escalate significantly. 

Zhang, who was one of the swimmers on that list, admitted that it had been "very stressful" in France in one of her recent statements: "Now that I’m participating in the Games, I’m very worried that my good friends will look at me with (suspicious) eyes and not want to compete with me," said the Olympic champion.

In the same interview, Zhang revealed one of her biggest concerns: "It bothers me that the French think Chinese athletes don’t deserve to be on this stage." But nothing could be further from the truth, during the Olympic contest, the local audience at Arena La Defense was very respectful of the Chinese athletes, even cheering and applauding them.

The monitoring was massive. World Aquatics offered data, published days before the Games, showing how Chinese swimmers had been tested at least 10 times since the start of 2024. Additionally, including tests conducted by other organizations, they reached as many as 21 in many cases.

Even their great performances were not enough to silence the outbursts on social media when Pan Zhanle swam an extraordinary 46.40 seconds to shatter the world record for the 100-meter freestyle.

The 19-year-old athlete, who was not among the 23 swimmers in the doping report, also raised suspicions among other competitors. Australian silver medalist Kyle Chalmers said he hoped “the race was clean.”

British three-time Olympic champion Adam Peaty also confessed it was “hard to believe” China’s success in the gold medal in the 4x100m medley. Additionally, he recently declared that "it makes no sense to win if it’s not done fairly."

However, Peaty’s criticisms were not directly aimed at the swimmers, but rather at the anti-doping authorities: "To the people who need to do their job: wake up and do it." 

Official media outlets fiercely rebuked the "continuous suspicion" hanging over the Asian team, despite being cleared by WADA: "The Chinese swimming team has been vilified by Western media, driven by the United States," wrote the China Daily in one of its latest editions, commenting that this persecution “severely disrupted the team’s training and races.”