Madisyn Cox, the 2017 World bronze medalist in the 200m individual medley, had her ban reduced from two years to six months after showing a positive drug test was due to a legal supplement that had been contaminated.
She is now eligible to compete after serving the ban since March.
“I mistakenly assumed that the supplement I was taking was extremely safe,” Cox said in a statement, according to Swimming World. “I had been taking this multivitamin for seven years, had listed it on every doping control form since making the U.S. national team in 2014 and entering the registered athlete testing pool, and had tested clean and without incident more than 20 times during that period.”
Cox originally thought she ingested the banned substance Trimetazidine, a medication used to treat angina, through tap water.
She failed a drug test Feb. 5 and was suspended through March 2, 2020. Her ban was originally reduced from four years to two after a FINA panel agreed that Cox did not intend to dope, though it did not accept that tap water was the definite source.
“Cox is an honest, very hardworking and highly credible athlete who is not a ‘cheat,'” the panel said a press release. “She is, unfortunately, caught in a dilemma.”
Cox was forced to miss the U.S. Championships in July, which meant she had to miss the Pan Pacific Championships in August and the 2019 World Championships, the two biggest international meets before the 2020 Olympics.
Cox was the top-ranked U.S. 200m IM swimmer for the year at the time.
After being banned two years, she sent the Cooper Complete Elite Athlete multivitamin to be tested for Trimetazidine. Both a sealed and an opened bottle of the product came back positive for Trimetazidine, which led to the Court of Arbitration for Sport approving the ban reduction.
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