London – Professional tennis player Goncalo Oliveira, who represents Venezuela, was suspended for four years by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) on Friday, after testing positive for methamphetamine in a doping control. Oliveira’s provisional suspension occurred in January, after he tested positive in November 2024, during his participation in the ATP Challenger event in Manzanillo, Mexico. Both his A and B samples contained the prohibited substance. The player born in Portugal denied having consumed the drug and presented his argument before an independent court. However, the court determined that Oliveira could not prove that the presence of the drug was involuntary. Oliveira is credited with the time served since his provisional suspension, which means he will be able to compete professionally again on January 16, 2029. Oliveira reached the number 77 position in the world doubles ranking in August 2020, the highest of his career.
This is not the first case in which an athlete attributes a positive result in a doping control to a kiss.
French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus was exonerated in July by the Court of Arbitration for Sport from a doping accusation, after the judges accepted that she had been contaminated with the anabolic substance Ostarine in 2024, by kissing her American partner for nine days. Subsequently, she was exonerated by a court of the International Fencing Federation weeks before the Paris Olympics, which allowed her to compete.
In 2009, Richard Gasquet avoided a lengthy doping suspension when the International Tennis Federation tribunal panel ruled that he had inadvertently consumed cocaine by kissing a woman in a nightclub.
