Cooper Complete, the company responsible for making the multivitamin that American swimmer Madisyn Cox blamed for her positive drug test earlier this year, says that their investigation is ongoing and that they have no findings to report yet. SwimSwam has reached out to them for comment several times in the last few months, and every time, their spokesperson says that the investigation is ongoing and that they have nothing to report.
It’s been more than 3 months since Cox had her suspension reduced by FINA from 2 years to 6 months after she presented evidence to a FINA anti-doping panel that her positive test for trace amounts of the banned substance trimetazidine came from a supplement she was taking: Cooper Complete Elite Athlete.
At the time, Cox said ““I did not immediately test the multivitamin as part of my FINA case because there had never been a recorded case of Trimetazidine supplement contamination in the United States. I mistakenly assumed that the supplement I was taking was extremely safe.”
While the Elite Athlete was taken off the company’s website shortly after she reported her findings that it was tainted, and is listed as unavailable on Amazon, many other supplements containing the exact same ingredients, in different quantities, are still available for sale by Cooper.
Trimetazidine is used in some parts of the world to treat heart conditions, but is not approved for use in the United States. It’s the same substance that triggered Sun Yang’s positive test in 2014.
I quite like the idea of Houston with heart meds in its water supply . Americans are always complaining about the price of meds & look it’s free!
Omg your so funny! Unfortunately the amount in her system and in the contamination would do absolutely nobody any good. You should take a pharmaceutical class! And then we can all wonder where the contamination came in the first place. Where are you from?
I hope Ms. Cox is clean. If so, the testing authorities have a problem – they are catching clean athletes with trace substances in their system that have no performance benefit, but are missing, day, the entire Russian Winter Olympic team. That’s a real problem.
The *entire* Russian Winter Olympic Team? I don’t know how you can say something like that in the same breath as declaring your hope that Cox is clean. Russia is a wealthy nation a population of 144 million that invests a lot of that wealth into athletics. If the ENTIRE Russian Olympic Team is doping, then why were they only 13th on the medals table? You’re telling me that even with a 100% doping rate, Russia can only win 2 golds? What does that say about the 12 countries ahead of them?
Doping is a global problem. There are uncaught dopers in every country. Russia’s history is worse than most. But the combination of hyperbole with naivety about American doping… Read more »
The only things about that Olympics that will be remembered are Kim’s sister & Zagitova !
Agreed. We Americans are way too quick to point the finger at other countries, with no willingness to accept the possibility that our own athletes are dirty. America is one of the better countries to make a living as a swimmer, but it’s still not great, and with increased financial reward comes increased incentive to succeed at any cost. We may not have a state-sponsored program**, but I have no doubt that a large portion of American Olympians from all sports are doping to some extent. At least as much as the global average, which I believe has been estimated at 25-40%
** or, if we do, it’s so decentralized that it would never be recognized as such.
If they are doping they most assuredly aren’t doping with microtraces of this drug. It would take months and months at full dosage to have any effect what so ever.