Athletes warned one-night stands could lead to failed drugs tests

Doping officials have warned elite athletes that they should avoid one-night stands to avoid a risk of contamination with banned substances.

Tennis player Richard Gasquet was cleared by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) in 2009 after testing positive for cocaine, with the Frenchman able to prove that it entered his system after kissing a woman at a nightclub.

“Gasquet managed to get her to come and give evidence to say: ‘Yes, I’m a cocaine addict. I use cocaine,” leading sports lawyer Mark Hovell explained at the Sports Resolutions conference in London. “‘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.”

Travis Tygart, the head of the US Anti-Doping Agency (Usada), also cited the example of American boxer Virginia Fuchs, who tested positive for prohibited substances in 2020 but was cleared after proving that the metabolites detected were consistent with recent exposure via sexual transmission with her partner.

Tygart, who has criticised the World Anti-Doping Agency regularly over the last 12 months, called on the body to relax the minimum reporting level of substances that could be sexually transmitted so that athletes were not at risk of suspension.

“I think based on the cases we’ve seen, watch who you kiss and watch out who you have an intimate relationship with,” Tygart said.

“I think it’s a pretty ridiculous world we’re expecting our athletes to live in, which is why we’re pushing to try to change these rules to make it more reasonable and fair.

“The onus is always on the athletes – we as anti-doping organisations, need to take some of that responsibility back. And I worry how many of the intentional cheats are actually getting away because we’re spending so much time and resources on the cases that end up being someone kissing someone at a bar.”