The International Paralympic Committee and Paralympic Committee of Portugal announced 51 year-old cyclist Luis Costa has been preliminarily suspended after allegedly testing positive for the banned substance Chlorthalidone at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.

Two days before winning a bronze medal in the Men’s H5 Individual Time Trial Costa submitted an anti-doping biological sample, which when tested at the World Anti-Doping Agency accredited Laboratoire Anti-Dopage Francais revealed the presence of the diuretic Chlorthalidone.

After learning of his suspension and positive test, Costa told Portuguese news A BOLA, “I did not take any substance deliberately to take advantage. I’m devastated. It’s 12 years of work that are at stake. Everything goes down the drain because of a diuretic. I reached the top, I reached the dream I had, an achievement that came out of my commitment, my sacrifice and my family’s and I find myself facing a situation in which I am innocent, but that will not change the accusation.”

Costa’s bronze medal performance in Paris was his best Paralympic time trial result. At the games in Tokyo he finished 7th and 8th in Rio.

Banned diuretics like Chlortalidone have been used by some athletes to reduce the urine concentration of performance enhancing drugs when taken together, thus making it more difficult for anti-doping agencies to detect these drugs via urine testing.

Costa’s case is akin to that of the German pro cyclist Michel Hessmann, who also tested positive for Chlorthalidone and is now suspended pending the outcome of his anti-doping trial. Hessmann contends that the positive test could be the result of using contaminated medicine, with Dutch doping expert Douwe De Boer telling WielerFlits, “For example, there are known cases where minimal amounts of a diuretic have been found in paracetamol and other painkillers.”

Photo Credit: IPC

© 2019-2024 All Rights Reserved Gran Fondo Daily