Face of Nation : Canada’s Laurence Vincent Lapointe, an 11-time canoe world champion, revealed on Tuesday that she has tested positive for Ligandrol, which can help repair and build muscles.
The 27-year-old will not compete at this week’s canoe sprint world championships in Szeged, Hungary, after failing an out-of-competition doping test in late July and has been provisionally suspended, pending the outcome of her case that is expected to be heard over the next few months, according to her lawyer Adam Klevinas.
Vincent Lapointe, who flew home from Hungary on Monday night, told reporters at the Sheraton Hotel in Montreal that she isn’t going to abandon her dream of competing at next year’s Olympics in Tokyo, where women’s canoe sprint is set to make its Summer Games debut. “I don’t want [this positive test] to be the end of me,” said the native of Trois-Rivières, Que.
Ligandrol, which is not available over the counter, is taken orally as a tablet and is on the prohibited list of the World Anti-Doping Agency. It works in a similar way to testosterone and anabolic steroids and can be detected for up to 21 days in the urine of those who take it. Vincent Lapointe has won six C1-200 world titles, four C2-500 gold medals, and one C1-5000 championship.
Her Olympic dream began as an eight-year-old watching synchronized swimming from the 2000 Sydney Summer Games on TV before she switched to canoe years later.n 2010, Vincent Lapointe served notice on the international scene by winning a pair of gold medals in the C-1 200 and C-2 500 at the world championships in Poland.
