Australian swimmer sent home from World Champs after failed drug test

Australian swimmer Shayna Jack has been sent home from the World Swimming Championships in South Korea, after testing positive to a banned substance.

The 20-year-old initially said she was leaving the competition due to personal reasons, though Swimming Australia has confirmed in a statement that she’d actually failed routine drug test taken two weeks ago.

“Swimming Australia tonight confirmed that swimmer Shayna Jack has been notified by ASADA of an adverse test result following a routine out-of-competition drug test conducted by ASADA testers on June 26, 2019.

“Once Swimming Australia was made aware of the adverse test result, it immediately took action – in accordance with the national policy – to provisionally suspend Shayna from the Australian swim team while a process was under way and accompanied her back to Australia from a training camp being held in Japan,” the statement read.

It comes after fellow Aussie Mack Horton took a very public stance against doping, when he refused to stand on the podium next to controversial Chinese competitor Sun Yang.

Shayna Jack maintains she didn’t do anything wrong, and that she didn’t knowingly take a banned substance.

It hasn’t been revealed exactly what substance Jack has tested positive for.

 

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They say a picture is worth a thousand words, in this case a picture can not describe the amount of pain and vulnerability I am feeling right now. It is with great sadness and heartache that I had to leave due to allegations of having a prohibited substance in my system. I did NOT take this substance knowingly. Swimming has been my passion since I was 10 years old and I would never intentionally take a banned substance that would disrespect my sport and jeopardise my career. Now there is an ongoing investigation and my team and I are doing everything we can to find out when and how this substance has come into contact with my body. I would appreciate if you respect my privacy as this is very hard for me to cope with

A post shared by Shayna Jack (@shayna_jack) on Jul 27, 2019 at 1:06am PDT