Swedish curler Glenn Ikonen in 2010 Paralympic drug scandal
Oh, this is sad.
He’s going down in history, all right, but not for representing his country at the Paralympic Games. Instead, Glenn Ikonen, vice-skip of the Swedish curling team has found sudden, worldwide fame for being the first and so far only 2010 Olympic OR Paralympic athlete removed from competition for testing positive for banned substances. He is the first Winter Paralympian to fail a drug test since 2002.
“I am shocked. I couldn’t imagine this. I am an old man. I’m 54 years old…Of course I’m terribly sad. I’m in shock. I wasn’t trying to hide anything.”
The drug he freely admits to taking? Metroprolol, a beta-blocker prescribed by his doctor to treat his chronic high blood pressure, and which confers no advantage in his sport. In fact, users are warned that it can cause sleepiness, uncoordination and decreased alertness, and the maker cautions against driving or doing anything that requires you be particularly sharp. It almost sounds like the warnings for watching curling.
This is the least exciting drug scandal since Rebagliati tested positive for weed. Indeed, the “sexy notoriety quotient” here is positively sleep-inducing.
It appears that Ikonen’s personal doctor (who had been provided with a list of banned substances) prescribed this particular drug not realizing it was on that list, and that he’s been on the drug for years without realizing it could jeopardize his athletic career.
This can happen for a number of innocent reasons, for example because of the wide variety of names by which drugs are known. Prozac is a name we all know, but the same chemical is also known as fluoxetine, Rapiflux, Sarafem, and Selfemra. The list says one thing, the doctor’s notepad says another, he forgets one of the aliases … it’s easy. It’s hypothetical that this is how it happened, but this drug is not something likely to improve his game (quite the opposite, actually; curling is about as thrilling as Swiffering a shuffleboard court in slow-mo, in freezing cold). There is no reason for someone who wants Sweden to win to prescribe him this; now, if his doctor is Korean, we might have a controversy!
My mother was in medical records for her entire career, so I do know what I’m talking about here. A decent computer system at the pharmacy or the doctor’s could have caught the error IF it happened to have the list of banned substances in its database and also happened to know that this man was a Paralympic athlete whose prescriptions had to be checked against the list.
Ah, but there’s a rub (there always is). It seems he, himself, did not bother to check that the prescriptions he was getting were not on the banned list. So it might come down to passive responsibility, rather than active rulebreaking or some perfect storm of bad juju.
“He did not try hide it. He had not checked to see if it was a banned substance,” added Hans Safstrom, Sweden’s Chef de Mission.
“Before I left Sweden I told my doctor I didn’t want to take anything that would not be approved. Of course I’m disappointed that he didn’t know. I trusted my doctor. I would never take anything that I thought was illegal for sports.”
Hans Safstrom, the Chef de Mission for the Swedish team said he totally believes Ikonen’s explanation that the incident was a misunderstanding on the part of the athlete.
Swedish team requested a review of the 2-year suspension which was handed down Friday, and the hearing began yesterday. Ikonen was thus prevented from participating in Sweden’s semifinal and today’s final match for the bronze against the US (which they won).
He will be 56 the next time he can compete in a sanctioned match, and 58 at the next Paralympic Games. Will he be able to compete by then? After all, this whole sad scandal happened because the man was just taking his blood pressure pills. Bitter medicine indeed.
(thanks to Vantwisitor, eternalcanadian, Bruce Fraser, Cathy Browne and Ilus Elu for tips)
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So he’s truly a confirmed stoner both ways, eh?
Yes, unfortunately for him. You’d think if there was ONE place you could get away with that, it’d be Vancouver!