Goncalo Oliveira, an expert tennis participant representing Venezuela, was suspended for 4 years Friday by the Worldwide Tennis Integrity Company after testing optimistic for methamphetamine, an company assertion confirmed. The 30-year-old Portuguese-born athlete argued that the optimistic end result got here from a kiss, however an impartial tribunal rejected his clarification.
Oliveira was provisionally suspended in January after an in-competition check at an ATP Challenger occasion in Manzanillo, Mexico, in November 2024 revealed the banned stimulant in each his A and B samples. Methamphetamine is classed as a non-specified substance below the World Anti-Doping Company Prohibited Checklist, which carries a compulsory suspension for optimistic findings.
Oliveira’s four-year ban, which takes credit score for time already served below provisional suspension, will run by Jan. 16, 2029. He forfeited prize cash, outcomes and rating factors from the occasion the place he examined optimistic, in addition to from subsequent tournaments previous to the provisional suspension.
Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus cleared of doping ban after court docket determines unintended contamination by kissing
Carter Bahns
The tribunal reviewed Oliveira’s declare that the substance entered his system unintentionally, both by kissing or environmental contamination. The panel concluded that he failed to supply “clear, cogent, persuasive or concrete proof” to help both situation.
Oliveira, who reached a career-high doubles rating of 77th in 2020, is now barred from competing, teaching or attending any sanctioned tennis occasions throughout his interval of ineligibility.
Whereas uncommon, Oliveira’s case is a part of a uncommon group of doping incidents linked to intimate contact. In 2009, French tennis participant Richard Gasquet prevented a ban after his optimistic cocaine check was traced to kissing a girl at a nightclub.
Extra not too long ago, French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus was cleared after testing optimistic for ostarine, with the Courtroom of Arbitration for Sport figuring out the contamination occurred by 9 days of kissing her associate on the time, American fencer Race Imboden, who had taken the substance. The tribunal concluded that the extended intimate contact might account for the optimistic check, permitting Thibus to compete on the Paris Olympics, the place she positioned twenty eighth within the particular person foil and fifth with the French group.
