World champ Shawn Barber tested positive for cocaine before Rio Olympics

Canada’s pole vault world champion Shawn Barber failed an in-competition drugs test for cocaine at the Canadian national championships in July after accidentally ingesting the substance during a sexual encounter he arranged through Craigslist.

The 22-year-old was permitted to compete in Rio after it was determined by the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada (SDRCC) that he had inadvertently taken the substance after kissing a woman he had met through the website in a hotel room who had taken the drug minutes before.

The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES), the body which oversees the country’s various anti-doping programmes, had originally proposed a four-year ban for a first anti-doping rule violation.

However, the SDRCC determined on August 11, just two days before Barber was due to compete in his Olympic qualification, that he had “satisfied the burden of establishing, on a balance of probability, that he bears no fault or negligence in committing a violation…”

The SDRCC’s decision reads in part: “The evidence showed that Mr. Barber did not know or suspect, and could not have reasonably known or suspected, even with the exercise of utmost caution, that he was at risk of ingesting a prohibited substance by kissing W [the woman in question].

“He had no way of knowing, and had no reason to suspect, that W had ingested cocaine before their sexual encounter, nor that she could possibly contaminate him with a …

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