Travis Tygart, head of the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), and sports lawyer Mark Hovell, have a message to all elite athletes. They highlight the dangers of one-night stands and urge athletes to be smart. At the Sports Resolutions conference they illustrated the potentially tragic outcomes of what some would consider benign sexual trysts. This encompasses issues such as forgoing drug testing, as well as the burden of proof faced in accidental doping cases.
Tygart pointed to the recent case of American boxer Virginia Fuchs, who tested positive for multiple banned substances in 2020. Fuchs was later completely exonerated. She demonstrated that the metabolites in her sample resulted from sexual transmission via sexual contact with an infected male partner. This dramatic turn of events not only sheds light on the capricious nature of drug testing for athletes, but also on those athletes that partake in non-monogamous relationships.
Hovell highlighted the difficulty that athletes would have in attempting to get evidence for an assault following a one-night stand. He noted how hard it is for athletes to even respond to drug testing charges. This is particularly the case when they do not have actual contact details for their counterpart.
“They might not have the evidence they need,” – Mark Hovell
Tygart called on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to act on these critical issues. He called for increasing the minimum reporting levels for sexually-transmitted substances. He emphasized the toxicity of drugs such as clostabal and ostarine. Athletes could inadvertently expose themselves through sexual encounters with partners who use these banned substances.
The debate quickly turned to some earlier storms. The most infamous of these was the case where 23 Chinese swimmers failed for the banned drug TMZ. Tygart calculated that these cases should be able to annul 96 medals at the Tokyo and Paris Olympic Games combined.
“And you run the numbers from the 2021 Summer Olympics and the 2024 Summer Olympics in swimming, and potentially 96 medals have been impacted by those swimmers who had positive tests,” – Travis Tygart
Tygart expressed frustration with the current state of anti-doping enforcement, suggesting that WADA must do more to protect clean athletes. He pointed to the instance of French tennis player Richard Gasquet. Gasquet was able to successfully persuade the hearing panel that his positive cocaine test resulted from kissing a woman in a nightclub. Gasquet was able to get her testimony to support his testimony that he was a whistleblower.
“Gasquet managed to get her to come and give evidence to say: ‘Yes, I’m a cocaine addict. I use cocaine. I kissed him in this nightclub.’ But with a one-night stand, how are you going to be able to find that person again? That’s the problem,” – Mark Hovell