Stimulant Use
In 2003, Dr. Wade Exum, the United States Olympic Committee's director of drug control administration from 1991 to 2000, gave copies of documents to Sports Illustrated which revealed that some 100 American athletes who failed drug tests and should have been prevented from competing in the Olympics were nevertheless cleared to compete. Among those athletes was Lewis.
It was revealed that Lewis tested positive three times before the 1988 Olympics for pseudoephedrine, ephedrine, and phenylpropanolamine, banned stimulants and bronchodilators also found in cold medication, and had been banned from the Seoul Olympics and from competition for six months. The USOC accepted his claim of inadvertent use and overturned the decision. Fellow Santa Monica Track Club teammates Joe DeLoach and Floyd Heard were also found to have the same banned stimulants in their systems, and were cleared to compete for the same reason.
The positive results occurred at the Olympic Trials in July 1988 where athletes were required to declare on the drug-testing forms "over-the-counter medication, prescription drugs and any other substances you have taken by mouth, injection or by suppository."
"Carl did nothing wrong. There was never intent. He was never told, you violated the rules," said Martin D. Singer, Lewis's lawyer, who also said that Lewis had inadvertently taken the banned stimulants in an over-the-counter herbal remedy. "The only thing I can say is I think it's unfortunate what Wade Exum is trying to do," said Lewis. "I don't know what people are trying to make out of nothing because everyone was treated the same, so what are we talking about? I don't get it." The International Olympic Committee's medical commission chairman, Arne Ljungqvist, said the Exum documents "fit a pattern" of failure to report on positive drug cases.
In subsequent interview April 2003 Carl Lewis agreed that he tested positive 3 time in 1988 but he was let off as that was the normal practice in those times" ".
Read more about this topic: Carl Lewis
Famous quotes containing the word stimulant:
“Physical pleasure is a sensual experience no different from pure seeing or the pure sensation with which a fine fruit fills the tongue; it is a great unending experience, which is given us, a knowing of the world, the fullness and the glory of all knowing. And not our acceptance of it is bad; the bad thing is that most people misuse and squander this experience and apply it as a stimulant at the tired spots of their lives and as distraction instead of a rallying toward exalted moments.”
—Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926)