CALGARY — Canadian pole vaulter Shawn Barber competed at the 2016 Rio Summer Games in spite of testing positive in July for cocaine.
Read the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada's decision
In a decision rendered Aug. 11 but released on Thursday, the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of __canada ruled Barber inadvertently ingested the banned substance by kissing a woman he met through posting an ad in the “casual encounter” section of Craigslist.
The tryst occurred at an Edmonton hotel the night before Barber took part at the Canadian track and field championships and Rio Selection Trials at Foote Field.
Considered a medal favourite heading into Rio, Barber finished a disappointing 10th.
Turns out he had plenty of reason for distraction.
According to his testimony at a doping dispute panel hearing, Barber initially rejected a couple of replies to his ad that he deemed “untrustworthy” but replied to a man who sent him a picture of an attractive woman described as a mother of two.
The woman testified at the hearing because “she felt horrible about what happened” and would hate to be the reason for Barber not achieving his dream.
According to her testimony, the woman snorted cocaine and consumed four or five drinks before hooking up around 9 p.m. with the world champion.
The sexual encounter lasted about 30 minutes, and they apparently kissed on and off throughout.
The following day, Barber set a new Canadian championship record and won the Canadian title. That night, he took a drug test which showed evidence of cocaine in his urine.
On July 26, the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport issued a notification of adverse analytical finding and proposed a four-year ban from the sport. Barber testified that he was in complete shock, as he has never taken cocaine.
He appealed the proposed the ban, saying that he didn’t know or suspect that he was at risk of ingesting a prohibited substance by kissing the woman.
The CCES argued the athletes are required to take utmost caution to ensure they don’t ingest a prohibited substance.
“Counsel emphasized that Mr. Barber chose a random woman he had no history with, knew very little about and had barely met in person for five minutes before kissing,” arbitrator Ross Dumoulin wrote in the decision. “This was a pre-meditated effort by the athlete to have a sexual encounter with a stranger in a hotel room. Exercising utmost caution would require him to have made inquiries to satisfy himself that there was no cocaine involved.
“The point was made that even if it were true that on-line dating has become an increasingly acceptable way of meeting new people, be it lovers or just one-night stands, athletes do not play by the same rules as society at large – they play by the anti-doping rules which have always imposed a far more stringent standard.”
The panel ruled Barber did not know or suspect that he was at risk of ingesting cocaine by kissing the woman and ruled him eligible to compete in Rio. He was however stripped of the Canadian title and Canadian record he set in Edmonton.
“This has been a learning experience for Shawn,” Athletics Canada said Thursday in a written statement. “He is a young athlete learning how to compete on the field of play and prepare away from it.”
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