Brazilian Olympian and Worlds medalist Henrique Martins was dealt a 12-month suspension last week, FINA announced Friday.
His suspension is retroactive to when he began a “voluntary suspension” on May 11th, 2018, meaning he has about two months left. While the time remaining is relatively short, Martins will have to sit out the 2019 Brazil Trophy, a meet necessary to qualify for Brazil’s 2019 FINA World Championships team.
Martins tested positive for Ostarine, a selective androgen receptor modulator (SARM) that has similar effects to anabolic steroids, in an out of competition test last March. Martins declined an analysis of the B sample, therefore accepting the original finding, which is partly why FINA allowed his official suspension to coincide entirely with his voluntary one. He contends he received an intravenous dose of amino acids from a doctor at a clinic in Belo Horizonte, and did not know the substance was included in the dose.
Martins, a multi-time Worlds relay medalist and 2016 Olympic qualifier in the 100 fly, was found to have a low degree of personal fault because he was prescribed the treatment by a supposedly experienced sports doctor, Dr. Lucas Mendes Penchel.
The FINA report also says Martins did research and personally called the clinic before his treatment to try to avoid this exact situation. Martins had been previously been taking clean supplements prescribed by Dr. Penchel for three years in a powdered form, but Penchel testified that he switched to an intravenous infusion because in March 2018 Martins was “ill and losing weight and strength.”
While Ryan Lochte‘s IV-related suspension likely comes to mind here, his was for the volume of fluids he received, in milliliters, not for the substances the infusion contained, like Martins’. However, there is one wrinkle in Martins’ case along those lines: Dr. Penchel’s prescription called for a 250mL infusion, which would be illegal. But Penchel maintains that the nurse who administered the infusion did not exceed 50mL at his orders, because of anti-doping rules. He claims he told the nurse to pour 200mL out of a 250mL bag, but could not recall where the excess liquid was put. Additionally, the FINA panel was skeptical of the research Penchel did, because the infusion limit was actually 100mL at the time Penchel would have looked into it.
Hence, the conclusion that Martins had low personal fault.
The 27-year-old was represented by Marcelo Franklin, the well-known lawyer for the Brazilian swimming federation who has previously had success getting suspensions of Brazilian swimmers either shortened or overturned. He represented Cesar Cielo, Joao Gomes Jr, and Etiene Medeiros. (You can read more about their cases here, here and here).
Brazilian? Shocking.
Hey “bruh”, please point Brazil on the world map.
What a joke. Why not do away with doping tests? Brazil in swimming and Russia in track and field and skiing seem to benefit from such treatment that they can do whatever they want.
Like us track and field?
Keep up with the news man . 2019.World Ski Championships had Austrian world champ busted caught re injecting . Austrian police promise to bust a European wide blood doping operation but we shall see . A few sacrificial lambs go down e.g. in this case Estonia coaches and athletes & management , a nobody German.cyclist , the usual Kazakh.