When kissing gets you suspended
Established in 1999 in Lausanne, Switzerland as a foundation, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has as its mission to lead a collaborative worldwide effort for a dope-free sport by developing, harmonizing, coordinating and monitoring anti-doping rules and policies across all sports and countries.
Governments are involved as they can introduce laws that prevent trafficking, distribution and use of banned substances to athletes, especially performance enhancing drugs among elite athletes.
Yet, athletes and probably their staff find ways to smuggle and use prohibited drugs that allows them to extraordinarily perform. The Lance Armstrong doping scandal was a case in point which led him to a lifetime ban from pro cycling due to excessive doping. He was stripped of his seven consecutive Tour de France titles (1999 to 2005).
Tennis is no exception. Goncalo Oliviera, born in Portugal but representing Venezuela, has been suspended for four years after being tested positive for methamphetamine at an ATP Tour Challenger event in Manzanillo, Mexico in November 2024.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) did the investigation on the matter and notified Oliviera that he is provisionally suspended, prior to the four-year suspension.
He used kissing as his defense saying that he met a woman at a bar in Manzanillo and spent a good amount of time smooching. The woman was also asked to testify and admitted they ended up kissing after consuming a pill which made her feel euphoric and being confident to socialize, with a feeling of joyful energy.
He failed in his kissing defense as the source of amphetamine contamination. Cited by the ITAI, a director of a doping control laboratory in Quebec, Canada ruled that the amount of methamphetamine in Oliviera s system was 36 times too much to be transferred by kissing.
Crediting time from his provisional suspension, he will be eligible to compete in January 2029.
He s not the first tennis player to use kissing as a defense for anti-doping violation. Richard Gasquet in 2009, after completing a two-and-a-half-month ban, convinced an anti-doping tribunal that he ingested cocaine after kissing a woman he had met in a nightclub in Miami. The tribunal stated that he was not significantly at fault for doping violation.
So, people, be mindful of who you ll be kissing. Stick to your partner or your spouses, otherwise, you ll discover another kind of suspension, the one with a rope tied to your ankles that suspends you upside down.
Martina Hingis, 5-time Grand Slam champion, tested positive for cocaine after her loss at Wimbledon in 2007. She denied using the substance but did not appeal the ruling. Hingis announced her retirement after the test result was revealed.
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