Richard Gasquet’s Cocaine Excuse Blows Martina Hingis
RICHARD Gasquet plays tennis for more then two weeks a year and, thus, as a professional is banned from taking cocaine – he tested positive for in May and was duly banned from the game for two years.
But now that crime has been expunged and Gasquet has blown back. Get this:
“…the Tribunal accepted Mr Gasquet’s plea of No Significant Fault or Negligence, on the basis that he was able to demonstrate on the balance of probabilities how the cocaine entered his system (through inadvertent contamination in a nightclub the night before his scheduled match).”
Do you see? Gasquet kissed a girl in a Miami nightclub who happened to have cocaine on her lips.
Unlucky indeed that Gasquet should then be tested for drugs and the kiss be potent enough to trigger a positive result.
The tribunal states:
“The expert witnesses agree that the ingestion probably occurred from the period 2am-6am on March 28. The player was at Set for most of that period. We accept the player’s evidence that he was not with Pamela at every moment while at the club, but we think it is likely that Pamela had the opportunity to take cocaine while not with him.
“We conclude that it is more likely than not that the cocaine detected in the player’s urine sample entered by means of Pamela’s kissing in the period between from about 2am to 5am that morning. If the cocaine had been ingested earlier, the quantity was so small and the half life of the drug is so short, it would have been undetectable in the player’s urine.
“We conclude that Pamela had herself, deliberately or otherwise, ingested cocaine before contaminating the player. It follows that the player had discharged the onus on him of showing that the prohibited substance entered his system and is therefore in principle entitled to rely on the defences of no fault or negligence or no significant fault or negligence.”
Anyone else remember Martina Hingis, The five-time Grand Slam champion who tested positive for a minute amount of cocaine in 2007? She got a two year ban. Said she:
“I am frustrated and angry. I believe that I am absolutely, one hundred per cent innocent. The fact is that it is more and more difficult for me, physically, to keep playing at the top of the game.
“And frankly, accusations such as these don’t exactly provide me with motivation to even make another attempt to do so. I attempted a comeback after a three-year break and succeeded in winning three tournaments, bringing my ranking to six in the world. But I’m now 27 years old and realistically too old to play top class tennis.
“So now I’m standing before you, confronting the situation. Today I also informed my sponsors. And so, considering this situation, my age, and the problems I have been having with my hip, I have decided to no longer play tennis on the tour.”
Did she kiss a toad, too?
Posted: 17th, July 2009 | In: Sports Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
