4-year ban for doping offence
SHAYNA Jack has been notified she will receive a four-year suspension for testing positive to the banned muscle building drug Ligandrol unless she can prove her innocence.
It is understood Jack has been told by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority she will receive the standard sanction for drugs that are classified as anabolic agents.
There are several ways the ban can be reduced but the onus will be on her team to prove the drug was introduced to her system without her knowledge, otherwise she will get the maximum penalty.
Her lawyers will argue the 20-year-old’s adverse samples were caused by contamination, but pleading ignorance will not help her case because she needs to identify the source and prove she made an innocent mistake.
Former ASADA chief Richard Ings said the initial fouryear ban was “standard”.
“You’ve got positive A and positive B samples and the process is you get a letter, you will be suspended, then you have right to request a tribunal hearing with the Court Arbitration for Sport,” Ings said.
“I wouldn’t draw any conclusion from the four-year ban, that happens in every matter. The issuing of notification of a four-year ban is standard practice in all these matters.”
Jack has pointed to a possible contaminated supplement as the reason to why she may have had Ligandrol in her system.
An anti-doping expert has said a “contaminated supplement” is a ”real scenario”.
Last month UFC fighter Yoel Romero received $27.45 million in a lawsuit versus Gold Star Performance Products after a New Jersey civil court determined the company made a tainted supplement that caused him to fail a drug test and led to a sixmonth suspension in April 2016.
Romero had maintained the New Jersey-based supplement company misrepresented ingredients of its Shred RX diuretic capsules, which failed to indicate it contained the banned substance.
If Jack can prove her supplement was contaminated, she will almost certainly still receive a heavily reduced suspension, even if only three months, because of zero tolerance policies.
It means she will be registered with a doping conviction in the way China’s Sun Yang was when he tested positive in 2014 for heart medication prescribed to him by his doctor.
The only way Jack can be cleared is if she can prove she was the victim of sabotage and can also identify the culprit.
And no matter what the final decision, swimming’s world governing body, FINA, and the World Anti-Doping Agency will review the case, and can submit an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland if they are not satisfied with the findings.