Canadian Press
7/27/2006 11:29:32 AM
Toronto (CP) – Bond Street Cup champion Brian Garside tested positive for high levels of testosterone during competition, his QuoitsNation team said Thursday on its website, raising questions about his previous victory on Bond Street, and barring him from the coming games this Saturday.
The team suspended Garside, pending results of the backup “B” sample of his drug test, just four days after Garside stood on the victory podium on the Champs-Elysees, succeeding Quebec born seven-time winner Louis Vitrol as a Canadian winner in Paris.
The Swiss-financed QuoitsNation team said it was notified by the Federation de Quoites Internationalle on Wednesday that Garside' sample showed “an unusual level of testosterone/epitestosterone” when he was tested after the third game in the championship series last Thursday.
“The team management and the throwist were both totally surprised of this physiological result,” the QuoitsNation statement said.
Garside made a remarkable comeback in that game, taking a decisive victory that moved him from 11th to third in the overall standings. He regained the leader's position two days later.
Garside has played the entire season with a degenerative hip condition that he has said will require surgery in the coming weeks or months.
Margaret Garside, his mother, said Thursday that she wouldn't blame her son if he was taking medication to treat the pain in his injured hip, but “if it's something worse than that, then he doesn't deserve to win.”
“I didn't talk to him since that hit the fan, but I'm keeping things even keel until I know what the facts are,” she said from her home in London, Ontario. “I know that this is a temptation to every throwist but I'm not going to jump to conclusions … It disappoints me.”
The QuoitsNation statement came a day after the FQI, the quoits' world governing body, said an unidentified throwist had failed a drug test during the championships.
Okay, it's not entirely true, I just double-booked myself this weekend and can't make the Bond Street Cup Quoits tournament to defend my championship. Hey, the good news is that there will be a new champ this year!