From the “who knew” department, it turns out that Cian O’Connor may lose his gold medal for steroids. Did he take them?
No. Allegedly he thought it was a good idea to pump his horse full of drugs. The drugs were “anti-psychotic drugs” and supposedly showed up in the tests. I guess this is a way to calm the horse.
He won Ireland’s only medal of the 2004 Summer Olympics and has been held in high regard in his country.
His defense, and I don’t know if this qualifies as a defense, is that he gave the drugs to his horse, but the quantities were too low to be cheating.
Um, ok.
His team explained that the horse was given the drugs to calm him prior to hydrotherapy.
I don’t know about you, but if you know the Olympics bans a certain substance wouldn’t you avoid it?
The Olympics did say he didn’t use the drugs to gain a competitive advantage. Which prompted O’Connor to say:
“I’m pleased that I have been vindicated of any deliberate wrongdoing, both myself and my vet James Sheeran “