According to United States Authorities, A Texas therapist Eric Lira, faces up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty on Monday to supplying performance-enhancing drugs to Olympic athletes, including banned Nigerian sprinter Blessing Okagbare.
Lira, a “naturopathic” therapist based in the city of El Paso, is the first individual to be convicted under a new US law introduced in the wake of Russia’s state-backed Olympic doping scandals.
The 2020 law, named after Russian whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov, enables the American authorities to prosecute individuals involved in international doping fraud conspiracies.
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Lira was found to have supplied drugs to Okagbare in the build-up to the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Okagbare, who was subsequently banned from the sport for 11 years, was expelled from the Tokyo Games just before the women’s 100m semi-finals.
It had emerged that she had tested positive for human growth hormone in an out-of-competition test in Slovakia before the start of the global showpiece.
US Attorney Damian Williams said on Monday, after Lira pleaded guilty in a federal court in Manhattan, that the case was a “watershed moment for international sport”.
“Lira provided banned performance-enhancing substances to Olympic athletes who wanted to corruptly gain a competitive edge,” he said.
“Such craven efforts to undermine the integrity of sport subverts the purpose of the Olympic Games – which is to showcase athletic excellence through a level playing field.
“Lira’s efforts to pervert that goal will not go unpunished.”
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