LONDON — Is this an Olympic first? A U.S. athlete got busted for baked goods.
Judoka Nick Delpopolo’s all-access pass to the Summer Games was yanked Monday, and he was sent home after failing a drug test.
“My positive test was caused by my inadvertent consumption of food that I did not realize had been baked with marijuana, before I left for the Olympic Games,” Delpopolo confessed in a statement.
He didn’t identify the specific offending food, so let the speculation begin:
Could it be that everything went to pot when Delpopolo snarfed a hash brownie?
Bummer, dude.
Inadvertent? Is it humanly possible to eat a brownie by accident?
The Olympic motto is: “Citius, Altius, Fortius.” But I’m not sure Delpopolo got the kind of high the Games want to promote.
With a heart-warming back story of being rescued from an overseas orphanage by an American couple, 23-year-old Delpopolo finished seventh in the judo competition at London 2012.
In the age of Twitter, however, Delpopolo has written a recipe for unwanted notoriety in way less than 140 characters.
“Any positive test for any banned substance comes with the appropriate consequences and we absolutely support the disqualification,” said U.S. Olympic Committee spokesman Patrick Sandusky, doing what all responsible adults are expected to do in these situations:
Frown glumly and wag a disapproving finger.
But here’s a serious question: In the age of human growth hormone and 1,001 ways to mask a competitive advantage, why do the Olympics care about marijuana?
When a brownie becomes a PED, maybe we’ve all become a little paranoid. Seems like international scorn is a wee bit harsh punishment for Delpopolo’s sin.
A record 150,000 condoms were delivered to Olympic athletes in London, a 50 percent increase over four years ago in China. Math wasn’t one of my stronger subjects in school, but that’s encouragement of a whole lot of bringing strangers together in the name of sports.
And there’s a crackdown on one marijuana brownie?
The Olympic morality police say: Make love, not space cakes.
Mark Kiszla: 303-954-1053, mkiszla@denverpost.com or twitter.com/markkiszla
