Don’t Dope, You Dope
WHAT HAPPENED?
On Friday, CrossFit HQ announced that five Meridian Regionals athletes tested positive for Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs), and would be banned from any CrossFit sanctioned competition for the next four years, ineligible to compete until the 2022 season. One of those athletes, Andrea Barbotti, didn’t even try and make an excuse saying, “despite the disqualification I’d do it again.”
Every athlete who qualifies for the Games as an individual or team is immediately tested on the spot at Regionals. But unlike the two teams and one athlete who were suspended just two weeks before the 2017 CrossFit Games, none of these five athletes qualified.
SO HOW’D CROSSFIT FIND OUT?
Leading up to the Meridian Regionals, CrossFit HQ had been tipped off about some suspicious activity going on throughout Europe — “people are doping” sort of thing. So they setup additional tests at Meridian Regionals to make sure everything was on the up and up. Obviously things weren’t and they got caught.
Since these five athletes weren’t qualifiers, it would have been easy to sweep this one under the rug. And if this announcement doesn’t show that CrossFit HQ will aggressively pursue any hint of foul play then let this warning from CrossFit Games General Manager Justin Bergh sink in: “the results from this will immediately affect our testing plan for subsequent events.”
SO WHY’D IT TAKE SO LONG?
Several of the athletes who did test positive appealed the findings which began a lengthy process to come to a final conclusion. In August, there was this little thing called the CrossFit Games so things got put on hold for a bit. After the dust settled, HQ picked things back up and just concluded on Friday.
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