The FEI has reallocated one of the three Tokyo 2020 Olympic team quota slots for Jumping from the Pan-American Games in Lima (PER) in August, following an adverse analytical finding in a member of the Canadian team, which finished fourth.
Canadian Jumping athlete Nicole Walker, who also finished fourth in the individual final with Falco Van Spieveld, was provisionally suspended by the FEI on 11 November after testing positive for Benzoylecgonine, a metabolite of cocaine, which is a prohibited substance under the FEI’s Anti-Doping Rules for Human Athletes (ADRHA). The sample was taken on 7 August, the day of the team final in Lima.
Following confirmatory analysis of the B sample, which confirmed the presence of Benzoylecgonine, the Athlete requested a hearing before the Panam Sports Disciplinary Commission, which took place on 4 December, and which the FEI joined via teleconference as an observer to the proceedings.
The Commission decided that Article 11.2.2* of the FEI ADRHA, which states “the Athlete’s results will be subtracted from the team result, to be replaced with the results of the next applicable team member” applies in this case.
In line with this decision, the Athlete’s results from both the team and individual competitions at the Pan-American Games are disqualified, and her results in the team competitions on 6 and 7 August replaced by those of the fourth Canadian team member, Lisa Carlsen. The Commission ordered that Panam Sports recalculate the team results accordingly.
The resulting recalculation means that Canada now drops to seventh on a finishing score of 84.07 and therefore loses its team quota place for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. This has now been reallocated by the FEI to Argentina, which originally finished fifth in Lima on 62.19 and is now promoted to fourth place.
The reallocation means that the 20 National Olympic Committees which have qualified Jumping teams for Tokyo are: Japan, USA, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, Britain, France, Ukraine, Israel, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Egypt, Qatar, New Zealand, China and Ireland.
There were also four individual Olympic quota slots on offer in Lima, one of which was earned by Argentina. Now that Argentina has obtained a team quota place through the reallocation, Canada will take one of the individual slots. Colombia, Dominican Republic and Chile earned the other individual quota places.
The Athlete Nicole Walker has the option to appeal this decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Under the terms of Article 10.2.2 of the Panam Sports ADRs, responsibility for results management in terms of sanctions beyond the event itself is referred to the applicable International Federation, meaning that any period of ineligibility would be imposed by the FEI, not Panam Sports.
As this is still an ongoing legal process until the FEI Tribunal has ruled on any additional sanctions, in order to maintain the integrity of the process, the FEI will not comment further on this case at this time.
Details on this case can be found here.
The updated results of the Pan-American Games 2019 can be found here.
Information on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, including the Qualification System for Jumping is available here.
Notes to Editors:
* FEI Anti-Doping Rules for Human Athletes Article 11.2.2: If a member of a team is found to have committed a violation of these Anti-Doping Rules during an Event where a team ranking is based on the addition of individual results, the Athlete’s results may be disqualified in all Competitions. Should this be the case, the Athlete’s results will be subtracted from the team result, to be replaced with the results of the next applicable team member. If by removing the Athlete’s results from the team results, the number of Athletes counting for the team is less than the required number, the team shall be eliminated from the ranking.
https://inside.fei.org/content/statement-reallocation-olympic-jumping-team-quota-place-pan-american-games-2019
