Jessica Hardy's Contaminated Supplement Cost Her 4 Olympic Events

Jessica Hardy had already made the Olympic team. That is what makes her story so hard to read.

In early July 2008 she swam at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Omaha and qualified for the Beijing Games in four events: the 50 meter freestyle, the 100 meter breaststroke, the 4x100 meter freestyle relay and the 4x100 meter medley relay. [1]

Three weeks later she was at home, watching.

Four days before the flight

Hardy was tested three times at the Trials, on July 1, July 4 and July 6. The July 4 sample came back positive for clenbuterol, a banned substance, and her B sample confirmed it. [1]

She got the news on July 21, at a USA Swimming camp held before the Games. Her flight to Beijing was booked for July 25. Instead of getting on it, she stayed home and withdrew from the U.S. Olympic team. [1]

Hardy said she had never knowingly taken clenbuterol. She turned out to be right, and it took until 2010 to settle it.

The clenbuterol was in her supplement

The case came down to the supplements she had been using. The arbitration panel found that the AdvoCare Arginine Extreme she took before the July 4 test contained clenbuterol. [1]

Two things about that matter more than the brand name.

Clenbuterol was not printed on the label. The panel said so plainly, and treated it as a reason to reduce her penalty. [1] Hardy did not skim an ingredient list and miss something. The substance that cost her the summer was never on the list to begin with.

She had also been taking the same product for at least eight months. Nothing about it had ever looked wrong.

She did what athletes are told to do

This was not a mystery powder from a website nobody has heard of. Before she took the supplements, the panel found, Hardy had: [1]

• Talked to the company directly about how pure its products were.
• Bought them straight from that company, which she had a contract with, not from an unknown seller.
• Been told the products were tested for purity by an outside company, though the company website only backed that up for one product.
• Asked swimming staff about the products, including the team nutritionist, her coach and the USOC sports psychologist.
• Used the same supplements for at least eight months.
• Seen nothing on the packaging that the panel thought should have worried her.

The panel called all of that "truly exceptional" and said no earlier case it looked at had the same set of facts. [1]

Now look at what a careful athlete could actually do in 2008. Ask the company. Ask your staff. Read the label. Hardy did all three. None of them can tell you what is really inside the container.

Proving it helped. It did not give her Beijing.

Showing that the supplement was contaminated did not undo the violation.

The panel did not believe Hardy was trying to cheat or trying to boost her performance. It still found she was careless, because she used a supplement knowing that contamination was a risk. What her situation did was make that carelessness minor rather than serious, and that let the panel cut the usual penalty. [1]

She was banned for one year, from August 1, 2008 to July 31, 2009. [1]

WADA appealed and asked for two years. On May 21, 2010 the Court of Arbitration for Sport threw out the appeal and kept the one year. [2]

That is close to the best an anti doping case can go for an athlete. She still missed the 2008 Games. A hearing can prove how a substance got into your body and it can shorten a ban. It cannot move a competition.

That is the part athletes miss. The real cost is usually not the length of the ban. It is whatever falls inside it: a conference meet, an NCAA championship, a contract, Trials, a Games that only comes around every four years.

Almost twenty years later, nothing has changed

The supplement aisle looks different now. The risk does not.

The NCAA tells athletes this directly: [3]

• There are no NCAA approved dietary supplements.
• Vitamins and minerals can still cause a positive drug test.
• Supplements may contain banned substances that are not listed on the label.
• Athletes have lost eligibility after taking supplements.

For a college program, the fueling station is rarely the problem. Every product in it was chosen on purpose. The problem is everything else: a bottle from the grocery store, a new pre workout ordered online, something a teammate swears by, a new flavor, a reformulated tub, a product that showed up through an NIL deal, a supplement someone started over break and never mentioned.

So the hard question is not only which ingredients are banned. It is a simpler one. Three months from now, can anyone say exactly which product and which lot an athlete was taking? For most teams, no.

What actually lowers the risk

If an athlete is going to use supplements, independent certification is the strongest tool available. It is the only common way a finished product gets tested by someone other than the company selling it. NSF Certified for Sport tests production lots and lists certified products you can look up. Informed Sport tests every certified batch before it goes on sale. BSCG Certified Drug Free tests finished lots against a list that goes beyond the WADA list. [4][5][6]

Spotting a logo is not the same as checking a product. USADA warns that those marks get misused, and says to confirm the exact product, and the lot where a program publishes lots, in the program's own database. USADA is also clear that certification lowers risk without erasing it. [7]

That is the honest goal here. Not pretending supplements can be made risk free. Just making an avoidable mistake much harder to make.

How Varsity Stack helps

Varsity Stack gives athletes and staff one shared process for supplement decisions, and it happens before anyone takes the product.

An athlete scans or submits the exact product they are thinking about. Varsity Stack pulls together the ingredient and certification information it has for it, including whether it shows up in a certification program, and sends it to the right staff member, who can approve it, deny it, flag it or suggest something else.

What a program ends up with is the record it always wished it had:

• The exact product an athlete submitted, brand and formula.
• The listed ingredients, and anything concerning in them.
• Whether the product carries real third party certification.
• Staff decisions, notes and suggested alternatives.
• What athletes say they are actually taking, including what they bought on their own.

Instead of "I think someone said this one was fine," you get the product, the certification information, the person who reviewed it and the decision they made.

It is just as important to say what this would not have done. Varsity Stack does not lab test supplements. In a case like Hardy's, where a trace of a banned substance was missing from the label and from any published test data, no app can see inside the bottle. What Varsity Stack cuts down is the risk you can see before the first dose: uncertified products, unverified formulas, unchecked purchases and undocumented decisions. It cannot promise a product holds only what its label says.

What her case leaves behind

Hardy came back. In 2012 she made the Olympic team again and left London with gold in the 4x100 meter medley relay and bronze in the 4x100 meter freestyle relay. [8]

London did not replace Beijing. The team she had already made was gone.

A supplement does not have to look dangerous to be risky. A banned substance does not have to be on the label to end up in your sample. And proving contamination later does not give you back the meet you missed while everyone sorted it out.

The time to check a product is before the first dose, not after a failed test.

Download Varsity Stack to check and track the products you actually take, or request access for your program.

This article is for educational purposes only. Consult a qualified healthcare provider, registered dietitian, or your athletics compliance staff before starting any supplement regimen. For questions about specific governing body rules, consult your athletic compliance officer.

Sources

1. Court of Arbitration for Sport, CAS 2009/A/1870 World Anti Doping Agency v. Jessica Hardy and USADA, Arbitral Award, May 21, 2010: usada.org
2. World Anti Doping Agency, Case Law, CAS, WADA v. Hardy and USADA: wada-ama.org
3. NCAA, FAQs About NCAA Banned Substances and Medical Exceptions Procedures: ncaa.org
4. NSF Certified for Sport, Certified Products and Program Information: nsfsport.com
5. Informed Sport, Sports Supplements Certification: sport.wetestyoutrust.com
6. BSCG, Certified Drug Free Program: bscg.org
7. USADA, Supplement Connect, Reduce Your Risk: usada.org
8. Team USA, Jessica Hardy Athlete Profile: teamusa.com