If athletes did not intentionally break the rules, as Chambers and Hunter claim, can they be fully exonerated?
No. Athletes are usually held accountable for what’s in their bodies regardless of how it got there, though the ATP’s recent decision to clear tennis player Greg Rusedski after a positive test is a clear challenge to that rule of thumb. A classic case came from the 2002 Winter Olympics, when British skier Alain Baxter lost his bronze medal after testing positive for methamphetamine. Baxter claimed the substance was in his body because he had not realized that the U.S. version of the Vicks inhaler, a common decongestant, differed from the product of the same name offered in Britain. The Court of Arbitration for Sport accepted Baxter’s story, and a three-month ban was overturned. But Baxter was still asked to give up the medal. Who is responsible for drug testing? Drug testing has changed dramatically since 2000, when the independent USADA assumed responsibility for testing all U.S. Olympic athletes on Oct. 2, 2000, immediately after the Sydney Olympics. Federations such as USA Track & F
