Lausanne, Switzerland — French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus was cleared of a doping allegation Monday as a result of the judges accepted she was contaminated by kissing her American companion over a interval of 9 days.
The Courtroom of Arbitration for Sport ruling echoed a verdict clearing one other French athlete with an identical protection in a doping allegation — tennis participant Richard Gasquet within the celebrated “cocaine kiss” case in 2009.
CAS mentioned within the Thibus case its judging panel dismissed an enchantment by the World Anti-Doping Company, which requested for her to be banned for 4 years.
Thibus examined constructive for the anabolic substance ostarine in January 2024. She was later cleared by an Worldwide Fencing Federation tribunal weeks earlier than the Paris Olympics, which let her compete there.
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WADA challenged the reason that Thibus was contaminated “through kissing with her then partner, who had been using a product containing ostarine without her knowledge,” CAS mentioned.
The court docket mentioned Monday “it is scientifically established that the intake of an ostarine dose similar to the dose ingested by Ms Thibus’ then partner would have left sufficient amounts of ostarine in the saliva to contaminate a person through kissing.”
The CAS judges “accepted that Ms. Thibus’ then-partner was taking ostarine from Jan. 5, 2024, and that there was contamination over nine days with a cumulative effect.”
Her companion on the time was Race Imboden, a two-time Olympic fencing bronze medalist for america.
Thibus, a silver medalist for France in girls’s workforce foil on the Tokyo Olympics, positioned fifth at that occasion in Paris and twenty eighth within the girls’s particular person foil.
