U.S. Cycling Athlete Barbara Gicquel Accepts Sanction for Anti-Doping Rule Violation

USADA announced today that Barbara Gicquel, of Salinas, Calif., an athlete in the sport of cycling, has accepted a one-year suspension for an anti-doping rule violation.

 

Gicquel, 80, was tested upon request by USA Cycling to validate a world record that she set on August 29, 2019. Anti-doping testing is required by USA Cycling Rules to certify national and international records.

 

The in-competition urine sample she provided tested positive for 17α-methyl-5β-androstan-3α,17β-diol and 17α-methyl-5α-androstan-3α,17β-diol,

which are metabolites of methyltestosterone. Methyltestosterone is a Non-Specified Substance in the class of Anabolic Agents and is prohibited at all times under the USADA Protocol for Olympic and Paralympic Movement Testing, the United States Olympic Committee National Anti-Doping Policies, and the International Cycling Union Anti-Doping Rules, all of which have adopted the World Anti-Doping Code and the World Anti-Doping Agency Prohibited List.

 

Gicquel applied for Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) for retroactive permission to use a medication containing methyltestosterone that she had used since March 2005, but did not declare on any doping control forms. Her TUE application was denied because the documentation she submitted did not establish that she had a medical condition that required the use of methyltestosterone and indicated that

her use of the medication was likely to provide an additional athletic performance benefit beyond a return to a normal state of health.

 

Gicquel accepted a one-year sanction for her positive test and long-time use of a prohibited substance, but she contested the start date of the disqualification of her results, including event wins and national and world records. Gicquel and USADA agreed to submit the question of the disqualification start date to an independent arbitrator, who concluded that Gicquel’s results should be disqualified

starting August 29, 2015, the date on which she first learned that her medication contained a prohibited substance.