FINA Doping Panel: Fujimori’s Honesty Preventing Reduction in Suspension

A FINA Doping Panel says that Hiromasa Fujimori‘s honesty is currently preventing a reduction in his two-year doping suspension. The Doping Panel is urging WADA to review the case and either make an exception to its rules or amend the rules to prevent similar situations in the future.

The 27-year-old Fujimori won a bronze medal at the 2018 Short Course World Championships in the 200 IM. In a doping test later that night, Fujimori tested positive for methylephedrine, a banned substance. He was stripped of his bronze medal and given a two-year ban from January of 2019 to December of 2020, leaving him ineligible for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Both Fujimori’s A and B samples tested positive. He immediately accepted a voluntary provisional suspension, according to FINA documents. The case went to a FINA Doping Panel, an independent panel of experts who rule on doping violations. That doping panel applied a two-year ban to Fujimori, based on FINA rules, but in its decision document, the Panel openly advocated against those rules, saying Fujimori’s commitment to honesty is actually preventing the panel from reducing his suspension.

“This case is, at least in part, about honesty and the commitment to integrity that may perversely cause a virtuous young athlete to lose his opportunity to compete in the Olympic Games,” the Panel writes. Here are a few key details the Panel reference in the document:

  • Fujimori’s sample tested positive for methylephedrine, but only in an “extremely low” estimated concentration of 16 micrograms/mL. WADA rules prohibit methylephedrine in concentrations greater than 10 micrograms/mL.
  • Methylephedrine is a common ingredient in over-the-counter supplements and cold medications, and is also a common contaminant of supplements and medications.
  • Many methylephedrine cases have the suspension reduced to six months or less if they can identify how the methylephedrine got into their system. The Panel says that if Fujimori simply told the panel that he believed an over-the-counter cold medication had caused his positive test, it was probable that his suspension would have been reduced from two years to 3-6 months.
  • However, Fujimori says he tested all of the supplements and medications he was using at the time, and none showed the presence of methylephedrine. He also says he can’t recall using a cold medication in the time leading up to his positive test.

In fact, an excerpt from Fujimori’s testimony to the Doping Panel shows that Fujimori was well aware that lying about taking a cold medication would likely have reduced his suspension and kept him eligible for the 2020 Olympics:

QUESTION BY ARBITRATOR: Can you explain your general values related to honesty?

MR. FUJIMORI: What do you mean?

QUESTION BY ARBITRATOR: Are you honest?

MR. FUJIMORI: Yes.

QUESTION BY ARBITRATOR: Why?

MR. FUJIMORI: Because I don’t want to live lying to people.

QUESTION BY ARBITRATOR: What made you decide you want to live without lying?

MR. FUJIMORI: It is a difficult question. Since I am little my parents always told me we had to live honestly without lying. My father as a coach told me and others that if we lack honesty it can influence the way competitions turn out.

QUESTION BY ARBITRATOR: Do you understand that you could have been dishonest and said that you used cold medication and perhaps gotten a less lengthy sanction?

MR. FUJIMORI: Yes.

QUESTION BY ARBITRATOR: Is that something you considered?

MR. FUJIMORI: Yes. I have considered.

QUESTION BY ARBITRATOR: Can you explain your process of thinking?

MR. FUJIMORI: I considered submitting this theory knowing I could have participated in the Olympic Games, but it is at odds with my intention of living truthfully.

The FINA Doping Panel commended Fujimori’s commitment to honesty, noted it as an example of “Olympism”, and wrote that it found Fujimori to be a credible and honest witness. Fujimori has been drug tested 51 times since 2010, and this 2018 test was his first-ever positive test.

The Panel also wrote that many other athletes have been found to have “fabricated evidence of the source of their positive test” in order to get a reduced suspension, a move the Panel says is risky and dishonest, but also considered by some to be “a relatively simple deception to get away with.”

Between Fujimori’s honest-to-a-fault testimony, the low levels of the substance in his sample, and what the Panel deemed the unlikelihood that Fujimori was using the substance intentionally to enhance his performance, the Panel wrote that it would support a reduced sanction. However, current FINA and WADA rules prevent the Panel from reducing his suspension at all from the two-year ban.

The Panel wrote that its “hands are tied in this regard,” though it urged WADA to review the case to determine whether it could make an exception to standing rules, or amend the rules to allow “discretion” to reduce sanctions in unique circumstances like these.

You can read the full FINA Doping Panel decision document here.

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YED
4 years ago

At least Fujimori admitted to something. Sun Yang goes to Worlds and gets a free pass to be a poor sport. Conor Dwyer gets to bow out of the sport (somewhat) quietly despite what he did. Junya Koga feigns ignorance, but even a reduced sentence is enough to end his career.

VIc
4 years ago

Complete bogus. Cheaters, especially drug chemical cheats should have longer sentences. Or at least no reductions.

Mr Piano
Reply to  VIc
4 years ago

Unless they’re American, then reduce their sentences because Americans never lie or cheat

Scoobysnak
4 years ago

So do they find it easier to reduce suspensions when athletes are lying? What on earth does any of this even mean….

Scoobysnak
Reply to  Jared Anderson
4 years ago

Wow. I mean that makes sense in theory but sheesh. Being that blunt about it does not seem like a good look for a governing body.

Admin
Reply to  Scoobysnak
4 years ago

There is a lot of focus in anti-doping conversation about Sun Yang smashing blood vials, and Russia, and while both are problematic, both also overlook the two most glaring gaps in the quest for a clean sport:

1) Accidental ingestion rules
2) TUE abuse

That anybody serves an anti-doping suspension of more than a few months anymore is beyond me.

Taa
Reply to  Braden Keith
4 years ago

They make it too easy for them to claim #1. I think a third might be missing tests repeatedly. It seems to be occurring more and more.

MarkAV81
Reply to  Scoobysnak
4 years ago

4 years down to 4 months….with a pretty far fetched story.
https://swimswam.com/fina-full-doping-panel-says-willenbring-doping-test-was-accidental/

Taa
Reply to  MarkAV81
4 years ago

The attorney he used is so shady

PhillyMark
4 years ago

The line of questioning is a tad absurd

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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