Pole vaulter ingests cocaine through a kiss
DRUG TESTING
CALGARY • It was the night before the Canadian Olympic trials in Edmonton, and reigning world pole vault champion Shawn Barber was stressed. So he posted an ad on Craigslist, seeking a “casual encounter” with a woman.
The 22-year-old from Toronto says he had no clue the woman he met through the ad had snorted cocaine before hooking up with him — and snorted more in the bathroom of the hotel room that night.
The next day, after winning the Canadian title, Barber took a drug test. It came back positive for trace amounts of cocaine according to a decision released Thursday by the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada.
That case raises questions not only about the risks for athletes of casual sex in the age of Tinder but also about the levels of cocaine that signal a positive in amateur sport.
“I think at the end of the day, online dating, online encounters and stuff, those are the future,” Barber told reporters on a conference call Thursday. “People who were around trying to date 15 years ago, they didn’t really have the same luxury. But this is 2016; I think this is kind of the way things are going for us. Everything is becoming online and digitized. So that being said, I’m not going to take that back.
“There is more caution I have to take now, because I realize I put myself at risk by kissing a girl. Unless you’re in a committed relationship or you’ve known that girl for a long time, you don’t know that kissing her could possibly transfer some sort of substance into your body.”
Barber’s urine contained 96ng/millilitres of cocaine in the “A” sample and 85ng/ ml in the “B” sample. A European toxicology expert testified at a hearing before an independent arbitrator that kissing was the most likely mode of transmission for such trace amounts.
The threshold for a positive test in the Canadian workplace and among most professional sport leagues is 150ng/ml.
“What is said is that when you snort cocaine, part of what you’ve snorted is going to be swallowed,” said Christiane Ayotte, director of the World Anti-Doping Agency-approved laboratory in Montreal. “Then you could have part of it in your mouth. If this is the type of explanation that the tribunals are accepting, then we have to take a step back and evaluate on which parameters we are testing and reporting drugs of abuse such as cocaine.”
Barber was considered a medal favourite heading into Rio, but he finished a disappointing 10th in qualifying and did not advance to the final. He learned only three days before the competition that the arbitrator had ruled him eligible to compete in the Olympic event.
On July 26, Athletics Canada head coach Peter Eriksson broke the news to Barber of the positive test and the four-year ban from sport proposed by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES).
Barber testified that he was in complete shock, as he has never taken cocaine.
The CCES initially argued that 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.
“The point was made that even if it were true that online dating has become an increasingly acceptable way of meeting new people ... 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.”
Identified only as “W” in the report, the woman agreed to testify at the hearing, as “she felt horrible about what happened” and would hate to be the reason for Barber not achieving his dream.
The panel ruled Barber did not know or suspect that he was at risk of ingesting cocaine by kissing the woman, so he was not at fault for the positive test. He was, however, automatically stripped of the Canadian title and Canadian record he set in Edmonton.
“It’s just a learning experience,” he said. “I live my life in a hotel. It can be rough at times.”
Barber’s father George also competed in high jump for Canada. George Barber was banned as a coach last fall by Athletics Canada after the organization learned of his conviction for having sex with a student at a high school he worked at in New Mexico.
ATHLETES DO NOT PLAY BY THE SAME RULES AS SOCIETY AT LARGE.