Dutch Olympian Kira Toussaint had a tumultuous 2018/early 2019 battling a false positive doping test for which FINA official withdrew its case.
Toussaint had been on a voluntary suspension after having tested positive for Tulobuterol after a November 2, 2018 doping test at the Beijing stop of the FINA World Cup Series. At the time, FINA’s letter to the athlete stated that a reading of 0.000000001 grams was found in the test.
However, after re-testing of the samples at the same Beijing laboratory, the earlier results of tulobuterol in these samples were indeed incorrect.
Although the FINA Doping Panel withdrew its case against Dutch Olympian Kira Toussaint in March of 2019, the organization published its official decision just last month. The document linked below details the timeline of the test, re-test, communication by the athlete, etc.
In conclusion, however, FINA’s statement published in December 2019 reads:
Toussaint has been on form since this entire ordeal, breaking Dutch national records in both the short course and long course pool over the past year. She wound up taking the 50m back/100m back double gold in Glasgow at the 2019 European Short Course Championships, while also snagging silver in the 200m back.
Toussaint has also already notched an Olympic-qualifying time in the 100m back while competing at the Amsterdam Swim Cup last month.
So the lab test mistook the formoterol she takes, and for which a TUE isn’t needed, for tulobuterol, and that her research (not the lab’s) revealed that the test methods used at that time were not reliable and could lead to a false positive test for tulobuterol. I guess that’s why they call it dope.
Why do so many swimmers have ASTHMA? Was there ever an official number published what % of all swimmers take asthma medication?
Don’t have figures, but there are a couple of things around asthma: (1) children with asthma are regularly advised to take up swimming and (2) there’s also exercise induced asthma, which affects elites athletes more often than non-elite sports people.
Wonder like you if this has ever been studied in a more systematic way, but these are two relatively well known factors.
What a shame she missed the ISL money and racing. “Beijing lab” sounds like an oxymoron.
She actually raced 1 ISL meet, and her absence from the others were not a direct result of this doping situation (though maybe an indirect impact for the need to train more to make up for missed time?)
I don’t really see why she should bear her own costs as she wouldn’t have had to defend herself if the testing had been correct in the first place!
Because FINA, that’s why…