JUSTIN Brownlee is facing sanctions after it was revealed that he had failed a doping test after Gilas Pilipinas won the gold medal in the 19th Asian Games.
Brownlee’s urine sample was found to have contained Carboxy-THC during the doping test conducted on October 7 or shortly after the gold-medal match of Gilas Pilipinas against Jordan in the Asian Games which it won.
READ: Brownlee preparing to file appeal, says POC chief
The second sample is set to be tested in the next few days, the result of which would determine if Brownlee would be sanctioned or not.
While Filipino fans are definitely hoping that the second sample would yield a negative result, Brownlee’s camp is already preparing for an appeal.
Philippine Olympic Committee president Abraham Tolentino said Brownlee’s camp is already looking at the prescription drugs given by his doctors when he was recovering from surgery to remove bone spurs in his ankle.
It is important also to note that Carboxy-THC is mentioned by WADA as a Specified Substance in-competition and a Substance of Abuse, which actually has an effect on the sanctions that will be imposed.
A look at the World Anti-Doping Agency Code revealed the sanctions that Brownlee is facing if the confirmatory result is positive.
Two-year suspension
Unless proven otherwise, the presumption for Specified Substance is that the athlete did not take it intentionally and that it was ingested out-of-competition, under Article 10.2 of the WADA Code.
This should explain why Brownlee is now in the process of collecting the prescription drugs he took during his recovery period to prove that he took a medication without knowing that it contained a banned substance.
If an athlete’s violation does not involve a Specified Substance, he or she faces a four-year suspension.
Three-month suspension
His sanction could still be lowered to three months, under Article 10.2.3.1 since the violation involves a Substance of Abuse, WADA sanctions an athlete for three months if it is able to establish that it “occurred out-of-competition and was unrelated to sport performance.” The sanction can in fact further go down to one month.
One-month suspension
Under Article 10.2.4.1, a one-month suspension would be imposed if the athlete also “satisfactorily completes a Substance of Abuse treatment program approved by the Anti-Doping Organization with Results Management responsibility.”
There is already a precedent in the case of United States sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson. On July 2021, Richardson was banned for one month due to a positive test of THC during the USA Olympic Trials a month earlier.
Richardson was able to establish that she took THC out-of-competition and unrelated to sport performance. Richardson said she ingested THC after she learned that her biological mother passed away through a reporter before the USA Olympic Trials.
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