With six wins in a row, the Dream Team put to USA at the top of the podium Paris 2024 Olympic Gamesbut some of their players were not able to live the dream of celebrating the victory with their teammates in the locker room as they would have liked. Minutes after becoming Olympic champions, the anti-doping authorities came to knock on their door and interrupt the party.
That’s how he told it Anthony Edwardsstar of the Wolves of Minnesota, who was one of the players forced to undergo an anti-doping test after his spectacular performance in the final against France. The other two players who were summoned to be tested instead of celebrating the United States’ fifth consecutive victory in the Olympic Games were Kevin Durant y Stephen Curry.
Edwards and Durant were guests on the Fanatic Fest podcast hosted by the former player Jalen Roseand it was Anthony who revealed the episode that the trio of the Dream Team post victoria.
“After the gold medal – I’m not going to lie – he (Durant) and I had a, what do you say, drug test,” he admitted. “We couldn’t even celebrate in the locker room. because he, Steph, and I had to get checked.”
Rose immediately stressed that it is no surprise that they asked him for an anti-doping test. Curry after his performance in the final game against France where he scored 24 of the 98 winning points. The comment reminded Edwards that Durant had already passed a test during the Games.
“He supposedly had one after the first game against Serbia,” he revealed as Durant laughed.
Although this type of controls are not new in these competitions, since both the International Olympic Committee (COI) y la World Anti-Doping Agency (AMA) are in charge of testing all the participants in the Olympic Games, there were always rumors that accused the big stars of the NBA of not being subjected to said controls. The anecdote that Edwards told served to dispel these rumors.
In fact, this is not the first time that a player cannot be part of a victory celebration because he has a pending drug test. Such was the case of Damian Lillard in 2023 when he played for the Trail Blazers of Portlandwho had a scoring explosion that year, and was surprised to have to take a post-game check for the first time in his 11-year NBA career.
Several players questioned the motive behind these supposedly random checks, but which appear to be aligned with periods of notable performances. The same thing happened to the Cleveland defender, Donovan Mitchellafter having scored 71 points in a single game. Instantly, one of the anti-doping control health authorities was waiting for him in the locker room.
After a good game, one often wonders: “How do they do that? How do they play so well?”, and it seems that the authorities wonder the same thing. However, the discussion on anti-doping in the Olympic Games seems settled.
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