Since we seem to be on a Canadian snowboarders and drugs groove today here’s another one.
In his new book Off The Chain, An Insider’s History of Snowboarding Ross Rebagliati suggests that his positive weed drug test at the Nagano Olympic Games was part of an International Olympic Committee plot to put snowboarding in its place, according to a story in the Canadian Press.
“I smoked weed on tour because it relaxed me, and unlike alcohol, it did not result in hangovers or weight gain,” he writes. “To be sure my results would be clear by the Olympics, I’d smoked by last spliff in early April 1997.” . . It wasn’t until after the Olympics Rebagliati learned he had failed every drug test he had taken in the six months leading up to the Games, but was never told the results. . . “When I tested positive for marijuana during those pre-Games doping controls, the FIS said nothing so that, should I win at the Olympics, the IOC could seize the opportunity to show snowboarders what would happen if we didn’t straighten up. . . I’m sure that many other snowboarders failed their drug tests for marijuana in the months leading up to the Games too. And if one of them had won the gold medal, the same thing would have happened to that winner. Too far-fetched? You decide.”
We wouldn’t put anything past the IOC, but this does sound just a tad paranoid. No?
[Link: Canada Press]
