Sophia Michaels
An American therapist from Texas is currently facing up to 10 years in prison. She faces the prison term after pleading guilty on Monday to supplying performance-enhancing drugs to Olympic athletes including banned Nigerian sprinter Blessing Okagbare, US authorities said.
Eric 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 Department of Justice said in a statement.
The 2020 law, named after Russian whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov, enables US authorities to prosecute individuals involved in international doping fraud conspiracies.
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 10 years, was expelled from the Tokyo Olympics just before the women’s 100m semi-finals after it emerged she had tested positive for human growth hormone in an out-of-competition test in Slovakia before the games.
US Attorney Damian Williams said 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,” Williams said.
“Such craven efforts to undermine the integrity of sport subverts the purpose of the Olympic games: to showcase athletic excellence through a level playing field.
“Lira’s efforts to pervert that goal will not go unpunished.”
Lira will be sentenced on October 15th, 2020 and face a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
