The doping scandal that’s rocked Swimming Australia continues to baffle all of us, with Australian Swimmer Shayna Jack’s manager suggesting that the banned substance detected in Jack’s system may have come from a completely innocent meal.
As such, Jack’s manager, Rodger Stoneman said her support team will be going analysing the athletes diet from when the test was conducted.
Since taking to social media to reveal the allegations herself, Jack has staunchly maintained her innocence. Now, Camp Jack is drilling down to work out how, when and why a performance enhancing substance was detected in her system.
Detailing his new lead regarding Jack’s diet to ABC, Stoneman explained, “It could be meat, it could be mushrooms, it could anything. It could be something in a bottle.”
“There are so many different ways that things can get into your system.” Stoneman added, explaining that Jack did not ingest the substance with malicious intent. “It’s a bit of jigsaw puzzle as to how this has come into her system. It might be meat but we don’t know, it’s too early to speculate.”
Following an out-of-competition random drug test by ASADA, Jack was notified by Swimming Australia that they detected Ligandrol, a prohibited substance that can lead to muscle growth and treat osteoporosis.
Initially, Swimming Australia announced Jack would be stepping down from the South Korea games “personal reasons”, which has now been debunked by Jack herself.
The timing couldn’t have been more volatile given the current climate around Chinese swimmer Sun Yang, who was facing protest from other competitors on account of allegations of doping and dodging official drug tests. SA chief executive Leigh Russell has detailed the situation with Jack as “quite different” from the situation with Yang.
“My understanding from Shayna is she doesn’t know how she’s come into contact with the drug,” Russell said to ABC. “She’s trying to find a reason for this substance in her body. Quite rightly she’s asking the question about perhaps what might she have ingested that is contaminated.”
While Federal Sport Minister Richard Colbeck has labeled the incident as “embarrassing, ASADA is continuing their investigation into the results, and Swimming Australia has declared their support for Jack.
You can read Jack’s initial post which exposed the results here.
