Gil Roberts says he’s a lover, not a drug-taker. The U.S. Olympian failed a drug test and was banned from competition, but he claimed it was due to kissing someone who was taking drugs a bunch of times, not because he was taking the drugs himself.
Roberts — a 400m runner who helped the US win gold in the 4X400 relay at the Rio Olympics – was suspended on a provisional basis in May after his A and B samples from a March testing period came back positive for a masking agent called probenecid.
But Roberts says he didn’t take probenecid to mask any performance-enhancing drugs. Instead, it got into his body through the power of love. His girlfriend, Alex Salazar, got sick on a trip to “rural” India and needed medication. Salazar got sinus medication from a “makeshift” and “messy” place and came back with a prescription of “Moxylong,” which it turns out contains the masking agent.
According to the report, Salizar met up with Roberts when she was back in the country on the same day he was visited for out-of-competition testing. The couple kissed then “chilled out” for a while, then Salazar took her medicine and they kissed some more. The key detail is that Roberts “could not count” the number of times the two kissed before he had to take his drug test.
“She arrived back in the United States on March 17 and continued to take the medicine. She saw Roberts soon thereafter, while she was still on the meds. Whenever they were together, they kissed frequently and passionately. Every time she took one of the capsules, she took it apart, poured the contents in her mouth, then swallowed the medicine with water. On March 24, 2017, the date of the drug test, Ms. Salazar arrived at Roberts’ apartment near noon; they kissed and ‘chilled out.’ Around 1:00 or 1:30 pm, she went into the kitchen to take her medicine. She did not tell Roberts what she was doing and he did not see her take the medicine. She opened the capsule, poured the contents in her mouth, then washed it down with water. Shortly thereafter she found Roberts and started kissing him. Roberts could not count the number of times they kissed between 1:00 pm and the doping control officer’s arrival.”
Presumably, that’s a lot of smooching. Perhaps surprisingly, Flo Report says this isn’t the first time this kind of defense has been used. Last year, Canadian Olympian Shawn Barber tested positive for cocaine that he says he never ingested. Instead, Barber claimed the drug was transferred to him through an escort that ingested cocaine and also 26 ounces of vodka before the two met up.
And the defense worked! Barber was allowed to participate in the Rio Olympics and avoided a ban that would have kept him from competition for two years. So the pecking defense is a valid one, and it’s exactly what Roberts used here and, again, it worked. Roberts is off the hook, and once again free to smooch away.
It’s an improbable story either way, but it appears to be a valid one here. So watch who you neck, you might accidentally eat some drugs or something.
