Word: rebagliati
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Dates: during 1998-1998
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...After Canadian snowboarder Ross Rebagliati won an Olympic gold medal, he was temporarily disqualified when blood tests revealed the presence of (a) steroids (b) marijuana (c) Twinkies (d) amphetamines...
Marijuana is not a performance-inducing drug, according to the International Olympic Committee, but they?re going to ban it anyway. Stung by being forced to restore the gold medal to Canadian snowboarder Ross Rebagliati, who had been disqualified at Nagano after testing positive for the substance, the IOC today announced plans to tighten up its testing regulations to include the ?social drug.? Prince Alexandre de Merode of the IOC medical commission said the danger with marijuana was that ?it can give you the impression that you are indestructible.? No word on the IOC?s attitude toward footwear commercials that...
Then came the next twist. A day later, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that because there was no formal agreement between the I.O.C. and the I.S.F. to ban marijuana outright, the I.O.C. could not legally strip Rebagliati of his medal. I.O.C. medical guidelines, which ban everything from cocaine to some cold remedies, qualify marijuana as "restricted" and a substance to be used "cautiously," while I.S.F. rules name pot as a prohibited drug. Said the panel: "We cannot invent prohibitions or sanctions where none appear...
Meanwhile, the Canadian Olympic team came up with medical evidence to back Rebagliati's claims. Carol Anne Letheren, chief of the Canadian Olympic Association, said that a single joint would bring an athlete's level to 400 ng/mL but that just being in a room with eight to 10 smokers an hour a day for six days could result in levels over 100. Ronald Alkana, professor of molecular pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Southern California's School of Pharmacy, said that marijuana's primary active ingredient, THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), can be stored in the body's fat cells...
...compare it to cracking open a beer at a friend's [house]: it's so common, nobody thinks about it." In fact, many had joked that with snowboarding's induction into the Nagano Olympics, some riders would inevitably get busted for their hemp affections. In any case, most of Rebagliati's fellow Olympic snowboarders have come to his defense. "He still won the gold medal," says women's halfpipe finalist American Cara Beth Burnside. "Everyone's just furious about it. It's not affecting his performance. C'mon, they're kicking people out for cough medicine...