Gilas Pilipinas ace Justin Brownlee could have taken hashish unknowingly together with prescribed drugs —MARLO CUETO/INQUIRER.internet
Justin Brownlee could have unknowingly taken prescription medication containing hashish whereas recovering in america, the place he had surgical procedure to take away bone spurs from his foot, the rationale the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP) gave the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC), the Inquirer discovered.
The nation awoke to information that the naturalized ace of Gilas Pilipinas, which ended a 61-year wait to win the Asian Video games (Asiad) gold medal final week, failed a doping take a look at carried out by the Worldwide Testing Company (ITA) throughout the event that put him at risk of being suspended for at the least two years.
POC president Bambol Tolentino, although, assured the nation that the gold will stay within the arms of the Filipinos as Olympic Council of Asia guidelines stipulate that there needs to be at the least three gamers that have to be discovered constructive to ensure that a workforce to be disqualified or stripped of no matter medal.
It was additionally Tolentino who instructed the Inquirer over the telephone of the SBP’s preliminary discovering on how the prohibited substance Carboxy-THC, which has traces of hashish use, was present in Brownlee’s urine pattern.
“The SBP instructed me that Brownlee stayed for a very long time within the US to get better (from a surgical procedure),” Tolentino mentioned. “They assume it got here from medicines he was prescribed there. And as , there are quite a lot of States which have legalized (hashish) for remedy.
‘Type of remedy’
Gilas Pilipinas members have fun with their gold medals after defeating Jordan of their males’s basketball gold medal on the nineteenth Asian Video games in Hangzhou, China, Friday, Oct. 6, 2023. (AP Photograph/Lee Jin-man)
“Marijuana as a type of remedy is authorized in quite a lot of elements of the world now, together with Thailand.”
Brownlee had been coaching with Gilas within the lead-up to the Fiba (Worldwide Basketball Federation) World Cup, which the nation cohosted with Indonesia and Japan. He excused himself in late July when Jordan Clarkson, the half-Filipino who performs for Utah within the NBA, confirmed his participation within the 32-nation spectacle ultimately received by Germany.
The resident Barangay Ginebra import within the PBA took that point to have the bone spurs eliminated, because the damage had been nagging him previously and figuring out that he could be tapped in lieu of Clarkson for the Asiad.
He performed with that damage within the Cambodia Southeast Asian Video games, the place he led the PH crew to the gold over the hosts.
Solely the POC, via Tolentino, is allowed to talk on the matter and the concurrent mayor of Tagaytay gave the peace of mind that the labors of the Nationwide 5 in Hangzhou, China, won’t go to waste.
“They should discover at the least three gamers (with failed drug assessments) for us to be stripped,” Tolentino mentioned. “And because the outcomes of that testing day had come out already, all of the 11 different members of the workforce have successfully been cleared.”
Sam Bzai of Jordan, which disputed the title with the Philippines in Hangzhou, was additionally discovered to have traces of a performance-enhancing steroid. No different Jordanian participant, whose samples have been additionally collected on the identical day because the Filipinos, failed the drug take a look at.
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Brownlee was the second Filipino wager to check constructive for medicine within the Asiad, the primary being Ariana Evangelista, the mountain biking ace who can also be within the means of interesting her suspension.