FINA Gives Kylie Palmer Warning For Two-Year-Old Doping Violation

Australian freestyler Kylie Palmer received only a warning and reprimand from FINA, ending a doping test saga that spanned more than two full years.

The Palmer case was already one of the oddest in FINA history. Palmer, a member of the Australian National Team, tested positive for low levels of a banned substance in an in-competition doping test at the 2013 FINA World Championships.

However, Palmer wasn’t notified about the failed test until nearly two full years later. With a hearing upcoming, and suspension possible, Palmer was forced to drop off the Australian team for the 2015 FINA World Championships, since her results would be annulled if she were eventually suspended, and any relays she swam on would have their medals revoked.

The reasons behind that two-year delay are somewhat complex. Here’s a quick timeline for clarity’s sake:

• July 31, 2013: Palmer fails doping test, though she only shows low levels of Furosemide, a masking agent.
• July-August 2013: Two other tests of Palmer during the same meet do not show any banned substances. Given that Palmer passed two tests and only showed trace amounts of a masking agent in a third, all within the same week, FINA elects not to pursue an anti-doping case against Palmer.
• July 2013: Because FINA is not pursuing a case against Palmer, she is not notified of her positive test.
• October 2013: The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) requests documents from FINA for use in Palmer’s doping violation case. WADA claims their request is ignored.
• December 2013: WADA again requests data, and now says that request was again ignored.
• Sometime 2014: WADA says FINA finally notified them that it was not pursuing a punishment of Palmer, nearly one year after the failed test.
• February 2015: WADA says it finally obtains the documents needed and goes to the Court of Arbitration of Sport to force FINA to pursue a punishment of Palmer.
• June 2015: FINA notifies Palmer that she is part in an anti-doping case. Palmer voluntarily drops off of Australia’s World Championships team. FINA releases a statement saying Palmer’s case will not be expedited in order to wrap it up before the World Championships.
• September 2015: FINA issues a warning to Palmer and annuls any results she achieved on July 31, 2013, the day she tested positive.

The biggest issue for Palmer was that the two-year delay between her positive test and when she was notified about it made it nearly impossible for her to retrace her steps to find out when the banned substance may have entered her body without her knowledge.

Palmer categorically denied taking any performance enhancing drugs, and Swimming Australia issued a press release noting how difficult the lengthy delay made it for her to defend herself legally.

Also complicating matters was that Palmer did not test positive for a performance enhancing drug, but merely a masking agent, of a substance that can mask the presence of performance enhancers. The masking agent was in a very low level, and did not appear on either of the other two tests she took at the same meet.

In the end, that was enough for FINA to merely reprimand Palmer and give her a warning. FINA also annulled all of her results from July 31, 2015, the day she failed the test. That won’t cost Australia any medals, as Palmer’s leg of the silver medal-winning 800 free relay happened the next day. Palmer will officially be stripped of her 7th-place finish in the individual 200 free final, though.

The other indirect punishment to Palmer is the fact that she missed the 2015 World Championships for a violation that didn’t even net her a suspension.

Palmer will now be free to rejoin competition moving forward, and will remain eligible for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.