According to a survey conducted by the American Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), more than 30% of US athletes are afraid to exercise sex because of the likelihood of illegal drugs entering the body. Were there really such original cases of “infection” with doping? How do athletes in Russia relate to such a danger? Sports correspondent figured it out.
As you know, prohibited substances can enter the body not only after their intentional use. Drugs on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) list can be found in what ordinary people come into contact with on a regular basis. One of the most common examples is the substance ephedrine, which is found in many cold medicines. I bought nose drops in a pharmacy without looking at their composition — and received a positive doping test.
The USADA survey says that American athletes are afraid of getting banned substances into the body through nutritional supplements (88% of those surveyed), medications (73%), meat (42%), the environment (34%) and sex (32%). Why are they afraid? Because, according to the anti-doping code, an athlete who passes a positive test is presumed guilty. That is, he needs to prove that he did not do it on purpose. But even if this succeeds, you can still get a disqualification — for this, anti-doping agencies have a special definition of «negligence» in the code of punishments. >But there are, of course, cases when athletes are completely justified. A very recent example is the positive doping test of Sergey Shubenkov, world champion in hurdling sprint. It contained a substance contained in the tablets that were given to his son. Each pill was broken on the kitchen table — that's the crumbs and got into the body of the Russian athlete. But in order to prove a coincidence, Shubenkov had to remember literally by the hour everything that he did in the days preceding the test, restore checks from the pharmacy, and so on and so forth. As a result, the international anti-doping services believed the athlete and the case ended with the withdrawal of all charges.
But the sediment, as they say, remained. “Fifteen years of paranoia have passed in vain,” Shubenkov said in an interview, such an idea came to his mind when a letter came about a positive doping test. “In the dining room at the training camp, I didn’t pour drinks for myself. Only those where they don’t know me went to the cafe. At first I really thought it was paranoia, then I got used to it and couldn’t do without it.
At the same time, according to Shubenkov, he used to be skeptical about the news about how the banned substance entered the athlete's body through kisses or other kinds of contacts. “But one case, just with a kiss, I studied a long time ago, and we used it in defense, when there was a lot of data that confirmed the athlete’s explanations. An extremely small dosage of the substance, the woman really had this medicine, which she had that day accepted,» the athlete said.
A similar incident occurred with Canadian pole vaulter Sean Barber. Before qualifying for the 2016 Olympics, the world champion posted an online ad that he was looking for «sexual contact with a woman free of drugs and disease.» He had such contact, but Barber's girlfriend deceived: before meeting him, she used cocaine. This substance is listed by WADA and was later found in the athlete's doping test. Barber's explanation that the cocaine got to him through sex, which included kissing, seemed sufficient to the anti-doping services, and the athlete was acquitted. «Toxicologists determined that it was impossible to take such an amount of cocaine intentionally,» the athlete's lawyer emphasized.
But the most famous incident of this kind happened to the bronze medalist of the 2018 World Boxing Championship, American Virginia Fuchs. An out-of-competition doping test taken from her in February 2020 showed the presence of letrozole and cardarine. The investigation showed that these substances were taken in therapeutic doses by the partner of the athlete with whom she had sexual contacts. USADA eventually admitted that Fuchs was not guilty and did not punish her in any way./
Moreover, the head of USADA, Travis Tygart, went further, saying that in such moments, information should not be allowed to be released. “The Anti-Doping Code requires even those cases where the athlete is not at fault to be considered doping violations that must be declared publicly. But we believe that if a prohibited substance entered the athlete’s body through the consumption of meat or a prescription drug, as well as those way, as in this case, it should not be considered a violation. When there is no intention to deceive or gain an advantage, there is no need to draw unnecessary public attention to the athlete, «he said.
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It is strange that in the case of the doping violation of Kamila Valieva, Taygart's reasoning is not based on the same logic — as you know, this figure is one of the main «militants» who are trying to nail the Russian figure skater to the «pillory». Although at the moment the procedures in her case are ongoing and there is no reason to consider the microscopic dose of trimetazidine in the athlete's sample as a result of intentional intake. At least until some kind of texture appears. So far, the only thing that has been reported is that during the Olympics, it was taken as a working version that this substance could have entered Valieva’s body by accident, since her grandfather took trimetazidine (a heart medicine).
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But for now, let's leave the specific case of Valieva and find out how they relate to this problem in Russia as a whole. To do this, I contacted several athletes and coaches from different sports and asked them, on condition of anonymity, to answer the same questions that were asked to the Americans as frankly as possible.
One of the well-known athletes in the country said that many people in his group of biologically active additives (BAA) are afraid — probably most of all of the above. «Everyone knows about medicines,» he continued. «They remember that in canteens you have to take food yourself and not leave it unattended.» As for sex, athletes understand that in this way it is possible for a prohibited substance to enter the body, but they have no particular concerns. There are the same norms of behavior as in ordinary life, in particular the use of condoms.
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“All the athletes in our group know by heart the rules related to eating food,” said one of the coaches working in figure skating. “Fans give them a lot of edible gifts — cakes with decorations in the form of some kind of gratitude or congratulatory inscriptions, cakes, sweets «Of course, they don't use any of the gifts. They don't leave food unattended in canteens. They know that water can only be drunk from a new bottle. Even if another athlete opened this bottle in front of your eyes and drank it, in no case should you drink from there after him».
In the history of anti-doping, there are also cases of illegal drugs entering through the consumption of meat. The most famous is that five players of the Mexican national football team at once passed a positive test for clenbuterol, which in this country is used for fattening livestock in order to increase the mass of the animal and reduce the percentage of fat. The players were not punished, but meat was banned in the national team for seven years. «I still believe that in Russia such substances are not used in animal husbandry,» the trainer answered the question of whether his students are afraid to eat meat.
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As for sex, according to the specialist, he knows cases of sexual transmission of prohibited substances from the WADA list. But to be afraid of sexual contacts because of the fear of doping getting into the body is too much. “Of course, athletes are taught to observe the rules of sexual hygiene, avoid casual contacts, use contraceptives. Everything is the same as in ordinary life. But as such, I don’t think there should be fears of getting doping through sexual contact — after all, there is a principle that you can’t protect yourself from everything «, — stated the interlocutor.
Finally, another coach of the skaters unequivocally said: «I conducted a survey in the group: none of our athletes is afraid to have sex.» So if it was once said that there is no sex in the USSR, then in Russian sports it definitely is — apparently, unlike the American one.