Here we go, again. An Olympic hopeful has been banned from the Paris Games this summer, after anti-doping tests detected a banned substance – which the athlete unwittingly consumed in a Gatorade product…
Issam Asinga takes the stage at the 2023 US Nationalannual Awards for High
School Athletes in Los Angeles. His title of world’s fastest teen was
subsequently revoked after WADA dropped its hammer…
Remember a few years back when an elite athlete set to bust records on the track was banned from the Tokyo Olympics after drug tests found a banned substance in her blood and urine? The stuff in question was a hormone called Nandrolone. And the athlete insisted the test was a ‘false positive’.
“I have since learned that it has long been understood by WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) that eating pork can lead to a false positive for Nandrolone,” runner Shelby Houlihan told the media. “Certain types of pigs produce it naturally in high amounts. Pig organ meat (offal) has the highest levels of Nandrolone.” She had consumed a pulled pork burrito just before her test.
Now its a male runner
According to The Washington Post, “Issam Asinga, the [Atlanta, GA] teenager who set the under-20 world record in the 100 meter [sprint], said that when Gatorade honored him as its high school track and field athlete of the year in July 2023, it provided a gift basket that included Gatorade Recovery Gummies.
“In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, Asinga claims those gummies are the reason he later tested positive for the banned substance GW1516, which led to a four-year ban this May and stripped him of his 100 meters record. The suit further claims the company took measures to protect its reputation, damag-ing Asinga’s in the process.”
Here we go again – with WADA’s zero-tolerace policy, and its deaf ear to protestations of innocence and false positives.
Another hopeless situation?
“You’re either guilty or you’re not,” Asinga said in a ZOOM interview alongside his lawyers. “I know I’m not, so I’ve got to chase my dream. I’ve got two Olympian parents. I was born to run. Am I going to destroy my dream because of something I didn’t do, or am I going to keep fighting until the end?”
A strong case
The container in which the cherry-flavored Gatorade Recovery Gummies came was labelled as ‘NSF Certified for Sport‘. NSF is an independent public health organization whose stated purpose is to, “help athletes, dieticians, coaches, and consumers make safer decisions when choosing sports supplements.”
It’s website explains: “The Certified for Sport certification is the only independent third-party certification program recognized by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, and the Canadian Football League. Certified for Sport is also recommended by the NFL, NBA, PGA, LPGA, CCES, CPSDA, iNADO, Ironman, NASCAR, Taylor Hooton Foundation, and many other organizations seeking to mitigate the risks of contaminated dietary supplements.”
Not good enough for WADA
That’s not good enough for WADA, though. And once again, WADA has been exposed as a joke. The China scandal would have been bad enough on its own, but it came while the Russian doping debacle was still fresh in our minds.
My take
Here’s another example of why WADA’s rules and protocols need major reforms. Arrogant, outdated, unfair policies have killed another promising young person’s dreams of Olympic glory.
But it’s not just what’s on the books that needs an overhaul. It’s WADA’s collective mentality, which turns a deaf ear to appeals, and a blind eye the hardest, most objective proof of innocence.
After the humiliating scandals WADA has suffered in the past few decades, officials are so afraid of losing further credibility that they’ve abandoned the fundamental sxporting principles of fairness and honesty…
Maggie J.