British Olympic Skiing Bronze medallist Alain Baxter was stripped of his medal because of taking a nose spray. To me, this is totally rediculous to rob a man of his lifetime ambition, just because of a nasal spray.

It certainly is rather sad. However he should have thought of the consequences before buying the spray - at least he should have spoken to team doctor first.

well that's sure weak. If that happend to me i would try and fight for the medal because it sure must suck to have ur medal taken away from u for working sooo hard for someting!

Agreed. Even tho the onus is on the athlete to ensure the contents of anything he takes , surely the explanation was plausible and if it was offered in a court of law I am sure that any judge would give a conditional discharge. However the IOC have taken the line of zero tolerance and once again the little guy suffers...

I love sport, but I ain't no Olympic athlete....

Correct me if I'm wrong but even I had heard of other athletes testing positive because of the contents of a nasal spray, well before Alain?

I feel genuinely sorry for the guy (not least because it's one less winter olympics medal that GB haven't got), but if it had been me I would have checked, double checked and then checked again.

I believe the ingredients were clearly marked on the label. This US version of the spray contained the 'illegal' substance but the UK version doesn't.

'Gutted'
wez

Yeah, I agree with the labels being clearly marked, but how could an ingredient in a nasal spray 'boost' performance by that much? I could understand it if he'd have finished 1st, but the rules are there and if you break them then you should suffer the consequences. Just unfortunate it had to be a Brit.

Do we all read the ingredients of every over-the -counter medicine we take?I must admit ,that even with my glasses on, I can't read some of the tiny letters.I cannot believe that any Olympian in this day and age would jeopardise his/her chances of a medal. I support Alan Baxter all the way and sincerely hope that he gets his medal back. Perhaps he could sue the company concerned?

Thing is, even if we can read the ingredients can we understand what they are? Take the back of my shampoo bottle for instance. There's an ingredient here that I couldn't even say never mind know what it is. Methylchloroisothiazolinone. Do we have anyone in the know with this one? But that's just stating the obvious really.

As Wez corrrectly pointed out the US version of the spray did contain an illegal substance which isn't in the UK version.

It really is unfortunate that this has happened, I think everyone must agree that taking this substance was done in all innocence. Jojo is quite right in saying that all competitors should be advised by the team doctors before taking any medication.

However, being a true sportsman he would probably be the first to agree that if it was in any way responsible for enhancing his performance on the day then he didn't actually deserve the medal.

I hope that this will only go to encourage him to redouble his efforts and attempt to achieve the same success legally next time.

[ 03-23-2002, 08:58 AM: Message edited by: izzi ]