The People’s Republic of China’s female volleyball team won a bronze medal at the Olympics in London in August. A month before, teams that didn’t even qualify were thumping them. The reason? According to The Atlantic magazine, the coach blamed a vegan diet, brought on by a need to avoid eating contaminated Chinese meat that might result in a positive test for drugs like clenbuterol, a respiratory medication for horses illegally used to encourage lean meat production in other species. Earlier in the year, China’s state sport authority had ordered athletes not to eat meat outside of official training facilities.
