News

Olympic hopeful blames positive steroid test on burrito

by Cameron Jenkins 06/15/21 10:07 AM ET

A middle distance runner with Olympic dreams said she was banned for four years after she tested positive for an anabolic steroid that she believes came from eating a pork burrito.

Shelby Houlihan, who holds the American record for 1,500 and 5,000 meters, wrote in an Instagram post on Monday that she had been provisionally banned by the Athletics Integrity Unit after testing positive for nandrolone, a steroid that can also be found in pork.

“I feel completely devastated, lost, broken, angry, confused and betrayed by the very sport that I’ve loved and poured myself into just to see how good I was,” Houlihan wrote in the caption of an Instagram post.

She attempted to appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport after she found that she had eaten pork hours before her positive test.

“In the following 5 days after being notified, I put together a food log of everything that I consumed the week of that December 15th test. We concluded that the most likely explanation was a burrito purchased and consumed approximately 10 hours before that drug test from an authentic Mexican food truck that serves pig offal near my house in Beaverton, Oregon. I notified the AIU that I believed this was the source,” she wrote. “I want to be very clear. I have never taken any performance enhancing substances. And that includes that of which I am being accused.”

On Tuesday, the Court of Arbitration for Sport announced that it would uphold the charge against Houlihan.

“After being charged by the AIU, Ms Houlihan’s case was heard by a three-member panel at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which made its decision after hearing evidence and arguments from the athlete’s lawyers and the AIU. CAS has informed us that the full arbitral award with grounds for the decision will be issued in due course,” Brett Clothier, who leads the AIU, said in a statement, USA Today reported.

Houlihan’s ban comes just before the start of U.S. Olympic trials and a little more than a month before the 2021 Tokyo Olympics where she was expected to compete, according to USA Today.