Gil Roberts of Los Angeles won a gold medal in the 4×400 relay at the 2016 Rio Games, but he almost kissed his track career goodbye when he tested positive for doping.
Now he’s been exonerated by the Switzerland-based Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The CAS accepted the 28-year-old sprinter’s explanation: Passionate kissing led to a banned substance entering his system.
“The CAS Panel unanimously determined that the athlete met his burden as to identifying the source of the substance … through kissing his girlfriend shortly after she ingested medicine which contained probenecid,” CAS said Thursday.
The girlfriend, 24-year-old Alex Salazar, had been taking Moxylong she bought in India.
In a USADA report, Salazar said she and Roberts kissed and “chilled out” on March 24, 2017, at his apartment — the day drug-testers came.
The doping control officer arrived at 4:07 p.m., about 2 1/2 hours after she had taken her sinus medication. He kissed her again and then left the room to collect a urine sample.
“There could have been tongue kissing, but it was more that she kissed me so soon after taking the medicine,” Roberts told The New York Times. Sponsored by Nike, he also hopes to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Even though American arbitrators cleared him, Roberts still faced a challenge from the World Anti-Doping Association.
WADA asked the international arbitration group last August to review the matter, and a panel heard his case Jan. 15 in New York City.
The New York Times added: “Salazar said that since last spring, her boyfriend’s case had raised her own sense of caution. ‘Before I even take DayQuil, it crosses my mind,’ she said. ‘Anything I take now, I think twice before I even go near him.’”