One of an athlete’s best routes to minimising sanctions after an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV) is to argue that the ADRV was not intentional and arose through no fault or negligence of their own. However, establishing such a defence is easier said than done.
Some athletes have successfully established that defence by identifying an alternative route by which the prohibited substance entered their system. While still relatively rare, in a growing number of cases athletes have relied on Kissing Defences, arguing that the prohibited substance entered their system by intimate contact.
For example, in Thibus the former world champion fencer Ysaora Thibus (YT) successfully relied on the Kissing Defence – and avoided any ban whatsoever – following the identification of ostarine in her sample. This stands in contrast to the decision in Oliveira, in which tennis player Gonçalo Oliveira (GO) unsuccessfully raised a Kissing Defence in respect of methamphetamine detected in his sample. Subject to any appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), GO has been banned from competition for four years[3].
Despite its somewhat unusual character, the Kissing Defence is becoming increasingly common. This may be unsurprising given research indicating that anabolic steroid use often occurs among nonathletes engaged in e.g. recreational bodybuilding[4], increasing the risk of transfer to athlete partners. Indeed, a significant number of Kissing Defence cases over the past few years deal with alleged contamination by intimate contact with partners who had taken anabolic steroids or selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs) for recreational purposes. For example, see: American softball player Madilyn Nickles (ligandrol) in 2020;[5] Canadian world champion canoeist Laurence Vincent Lapointe (ligandrol) in 2020;[6] Ukrainian tennis player Dayana Yastremska (mesterolone) in 2021;[7] Canadian curler Briane Harris (ligandrol) in 2025;[8] and Swiss triathlete Imogen Simmonds (ligandrol) in 2025[9].
The full article is available on the LawInSport website.
