FIBA – FIBA suspends physiotherapist in landmark doping case

GENEVA (FIBA) – FIBA has suspended a physiotherapist with Cyprus’s national team for one year following his involvement in a doping case.

The physiotherapist was accused of violating article 2.8 of the FIBA Anti-Doping Regulations which prohibits “assisting, encouraging, aiding, abetting, covering up or any other type of complicity involving an anti-doping rule violation or any attempted violation”.

During a doping control at the XIII Games of the Small States of Europe, a player on the Cyprus national team tested positive for an anabolic steroid. After being confronted with the violation, the player decided to collaborate in the enquiry by naming the person who helped him in falsely noting on the doping control form a prohibited medication (as “declared medication”) and advised him to use it later as an excuse for his positive result in order to get a reduced sanction.

The player’s own ban was reduced from two years to 18 months following his collaboration.

This is the first time FIBA has sanctioned someone in a player’s entourage.

Details of the case can be found in the ‘Decisions on doping cases’ area of FIBA’s Medical corner section

The move to ban the physiotherapist reflects FIBA’s concerted effort to investigate doping cases much further and sanction not just the players who are in breach of the Anti-Doping Regulations, but also to go after the people who assisted them in that regard.