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US Olympic runner Shelby Houlihan believes her doping test came back positive from a pork burrito. Photo: Paul Gilham / Getty Images
An American Olympic runner blamed a pork burrito for a positive doping test that led to a ban on participating in international sports for four years, including the Tokyo Games this summer.
After learning of the ban on Friday, athlete Shelby Houlihan said the burrito she took 10 hours before her December urine test likely caused her to test positive for nandrolone, a blood-enhancing steroid. performance.
The four-year ban means Houlihan, a former Olympian who holds the US record in the 1,500 and 5,000 meters, will be forced out of the Tokyo Olympics as well as the 2024 Paris Games.
In an Instagram post on Tuesday, she said she had “never heard of nandrolone” until she learned of her test result last week.
She said nandrolone could be found in pork, especially pork offal, and that the source of the steroid in her system was “probably” from the burrito she bought from an “authentic Mexican food truck” near. from his home in Beaverton, Oregon.
The athlete claimed her nandrolone levels were “consistent with those of study subjects who were tested 10 hours after eating this source,” but said her defense was unfairly dismissed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (AMA).
“I did everything to prove my innocence. I took a polygraph test. I had my hair sampled by one of the world’s leading toxicologists, ”she said.
Although WADA agreed with Houlihan that there was no buildup of nandrolone in his system, proven by a negative test taken five weeks later, a single positive test could still lead to a ban.
The Athletics Integrity Unit, the regulatory body that issued the ban on Houlihan, said she violated the World Anti-Doping Code, which states that it is the “personal duty” of athletes to ensure that no prohibited substance enters their body.
Nandrolone is an anabolic steroid. When prescribed, it can be used for testosterone replacement therapy and the treatment of HIV atrophy syndrome, the unintentional weight loss seen in people living with HIV.
Anabolic steroids are sometimes taken to increase muscle mass and improve the performance of an athlete. Anti-doping regulations have banned nandrolone for over 30 years.
But a study funded by WADA, the organization that issued the Houlihan ban, acknowledged that traces of nandrolone can be found in pork and can be detected in human urine samples if consumed.
The positive test left Houlihan “completely devastated, lost, broken, angry, confused and betrayed by the very sport I loved and invested in just to see how good I was,” a- she said in her message.
She said she would fight to prove her innocence.
At a press conference Monday, Houlihan’s attorney Paul Greene implored WADA to report the positive result as an atypical result and to retest Houlihan “so as not to ruin an innocent athlete on the basis of ‘an abnormal result’.
Greene said he plans to appeal the result to the Swiss Federal Court.
In the past, there have been similar cases of athletes being suspended for traces of banned steroids found in certain meats.
In February, Kenyan long-distance runner James Kibet was banned from the sport for four years after testing positive for nandrolone.
Kibet admitted the doping violation, but he also suggested that the steroid could have entered his body through pork, Reuters reported.
Likewise, the Athletics Integrity Unit said it was his personal duty to ensure he had not ingested any prohibited substances.
In October 2019, Thai badminton star Ratchanok Intanon was cleared of doping offenses after testing positive for clenbuterol, a meat-related substance she ate at a barbecue restaurant.
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