Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus escapes doping ban with kissing defense

Doping? Nope, just kissing.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport cleared French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus of doping charges after judges determined the contamination in her system came from kissing her former partner.

The 33-year-old was initially suspended from fencing in early 2024 by the International Testing Agency after a test at the 2024 Challenge International de Paris showed ostarine, a selective androgen receptor modulator which can promote muscle and bone growth that is prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency, present in the results. 

“The CAS Panel considered the evidence and noted that it is scientifically established that the intake of an ostarine dose similar to the dose ingested by Ms. Thibus’ then partner would have left sufficient amounts of ostarine in the saliva to contaminate a person through kissing,” CAS wrote in a release on Monday.

“The Panel also accepted that Ms. Thibus’ then partner was taking ostarine from 5 January 2024, and that there was contamination over 9 days with a cumulative effect. The Panel excluded that Ms Thibus intentionally ingested the ostarine in addition to being contaminated.”

After being cleared initially to compete for France at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, where she finished fifth in the team foil event and 28th in the individual foil event, WADA appealed the decision, attempting to reject Thibus’ kissing argument.

The CAS then held a hearing for Thibus, a silver medalist at the Tokyo Games in 2021, in Switzerland in March, at which WADA requested four years of ineligibility.

Thibus’ partner at the time was consuming ostarine without her knowledge.

“The CAS Panel ruled that the [antidoping rule violation] for the presence of ostarine was not intentional, and that it is not questionable that Ms. Thibus bears no fault or negligence,” the governing body concluded.

Thibus’ defense -— and the subsequent CAS decision — are not unheard of when it comes to athletes and drug tests.

In 2009, Richard Gasquet escaped a doping ban when the tennis player convinced the International Tennis Federation he inadvertently took cocaine by kissing a woman in a nightclub.