A Texas doctor faces up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to providing performance-enhancing drugs to athletes at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, including Nigerian sprinter Blessing Okagbare. The news was made public by officials of the US Judicial Authorities.
The reason for Eric Lira, who presents himself as a “kinesiologist and naturopathic” doctor, based in El Paso, Texas, and is the first to be charged under the “Rodchenkov Act”, passed in December 2020, which allows the United States to prosecute suspects, regardless of nationality, if they are involved in an international doping scheme.
Lira admitted to supplying doping products to Okagbare before the Tokyo Olympics. The Nigerian, who was handed an 11-year ban by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), was disqualified shortly before the women’s 100m semi-final for doping with growth hormone after testing on July 19.
In October of the same year, the 34-year-old champion was suspended again after testing positive for the substance erythropoietin earlier in the season.
“This penalty is a landmark moment as it marks a turning point for international sport,” said U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, adding: “Lira supplied banned substances intended to enhance the performance of athletes who wanted to gain an advantage through corruption. Such attempts to undermine the integrity of sport are antithetical to the purpose of the Olympic Games, which is to showcase sporting excellence through a level playing field. His attempts to distort this aim will not go unpunished».
Lira’s sentence will be determined by a judge at a later date.
“Without this law, anyone posing as an athlete’s doctor would likely have escaped the consequences of distributing doping products and conspiring to cheat the Tokyo Olympics“, emphasized Travis Tygart, head of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).
The relevant law bears the name of Grigory Rodchenkov, the former director of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory, since the beginning of the revelations about organized doping in Russia, between 2011 and 2015, and a refugee in the United States.
The law had been criticized by many international actors, including the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), who feared it would encourage other countries to set up their own jurisdiction for political reasons.
Source: RES-MPE
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