Asinga filed suit against Gatorade and its parent company, Pepsi, in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeking “recovery of millions of dollars in lost economic opportunities and damages for the devastating emotional damages he has suffered,” according to the complaint.
“The products in question are completely safe and the claims are false. Gatorade products are FDA compliant and safe for consumption by athletes, which has been verified by the findings of the Athletic Integrity Unit,” a Gatorade spokesperson said in an email.
If he had been eligible, Asinga could have represented Suriname at the Paris Olympics and earned millions in sponsorship deals. But he has been barred from the Olympics, losing those sponsorship opportunities. The suspension also prevents him from training or competing at Texas A&M, and despite the support he has received from his coaching staff, Asinga believes he may lose his scholarship.
“You’re either guilty or you’re not guilty,” Asinga said in a Zoom interview with his lawyer. “I know I’m innocent, so I have to pursue my dreams. My parents are Olympians and I was born to run. Do I destroy my dreams for something I didn’t do, or do I keep fighting until the end?”
“It was an honor when I was asked to take the test.”
Asinga grew up in Atlanta, went to boarding school in St. Louis, lived for several years in Zambia, where his mother is from, went to high school in Florida and now attends Texas A&M University. He is the son of Olympians in track and field; his mother, Ngozi, competed for Zambia and his father, Tommy, is a former flag bearer for Suriname.
By the summer of 2023, Asinga had become one of the most promising track and field athletes in the world. That April, he stunned the athletics world by beating world champion Noah Lyles in the 100 meters in Florida with a wind-powered time of 9.83 seconds.
Assinga chose to compete under the Surinamese flag, and in a Zoom interview on Wednesday, Tommy began to cry as he spoke about the impact his son’s suspension has had on his country.
“By running for Suriname, I felt I had more of a chance to make a difference,” said Issam Assinga. “In Suriname, we are held back by the facilities. We don’t have the people to make a difference. Everything I can do in athletics can help make the country better.”
Gatorade named him the 2023 Florida Men’s Track and Field Athlete of the Year and invited him to a ceremony in Los Angeles on July 11. A month before the ceremony, Asinga took a drug test that came back negative, according to the lawsuit.
“I was honored when they asked me to get tested,” Asinga said. “I was like, ‘OK, I’ll do it!’ That’s when I knew I was going to get somewhere.”
At a gathering the day before the ceremony, Gatorade presented Asinga and the other athletes with gift bags filled with cherry-flavored Gatorade Recovery gummies stamped with “NSF Certified for Sport,” an independent public health agency.
According to the lawsuit, Asinga’s mother texted a photo of the ingredients label to Isam’s coach, Gerald Phiri, asking, “Is this safe to eat?”[?]”
When Ngozi showed a photo of the Gatorade logo, Phiri replied: “Yeah, both are fine. Gatorade doesn’t make products that go against the rules of sports.”
Over the next two weeks, Asinga took two gummies after training, according to the lawsuit. World Athletics’ drug-testing department, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), tested Asinga again on July 18.
According to the lawsuit, Asinga stopped taking the gummies “on or about” July 25. On July 28, Asinga ran the 100 meters in 9.89 seconds at a meet in Sao Paulo, Brazil, with wind legality. He had broken the under-20 world record. The AIU tested Asinga again that day, and the July 28 test came back normal.
On August 9, 2023, the AIU notified Asinga that he had failed a drug test on July 18. He had tested positive for GW1516 in his urine. When Asinga received the call, he was shocked and fell to his knees.
“It was horrible,” Asinga said. “It was the worst day of my life.”
GW1516, known as cardarine, was originally developed as a treatment for obesity and alters fat metabolism in the body, according to the United States Anti-Doping Agency. Its use in food and medicine is illegal. “However, athletes should be aware that dietary supplements may be contaminated with this compound,” the agency said in its handbook.
Asinga and his lawyer, Paul Green, who specializes in defending athletes accused of using performance-enhancing drugs, compiled a list of foods and supplements he had taken that could test for GW1516, including Gatorade gummies.
“We laughed about it,” Asinga said, “I had no idea this source was in this. This is a brand I’ve admired my whole life. Gatorade is part of the sport.”
Asinga sent the gummies to the same lab, according to the complaint. On Oct. 26, 2023, the lab notified the AIU that its “preliminary findings” concluded that the Gatorade gummies were contaminated with GW1516, according to the complaint.
When a company makes a dietary supplement that requires certification, it does so with batch numbers so that each lot can be traced back in case of contamination. Federal regulations require the company to keep samples of each lot.
Under AIU regulations, Asinga was required to obtain and submit an unopened bottle of gummies from the same lot as his own, lot number 22092117150234. He contacted Gatorade to try to obtain a bottle of gummies from the correct lot. According to the lawsuit, in late November 2023, a Gatorade representative texted Asinga, “We’re sorry to inform you that we’ve discontinued making the gummies and no longer have them in stock. … They may come back, but I think you’ll be fine.”[s] It was as if there was a manufacturing problem!”
According to the complaint, further testing at a Utah lab not only confirmed that the gummies provided by Asinga were contaminated with GW1516, but also found the same baseline levels of GW1516 found in Asinga’s drug tests, with a chemical code that matched. The lab provided these analyses to the AIU.
According to the AIU’s decision, the lab noticed “two unusual things”: “significant discrepancies in the test results of two containers of Gatorade Recovery Gummies” and contaminants were present rather than uniformly distributed on the surface of the gummies.
The laboratory concluded that “it is impossible to rule out the possibility that the product was deliberately adulterated after opening,” the ruling said.
Mr. Asinga’s lawyer said it was hard to believe that Mr. Asinga had adulterated the gummies.
“They would all have had to be individually immersed in a concoction diluted to one trillionth of a gram,” Green said. “That would have had to be done by an 18-year-old living in a dorm. It’s almost laughable that he’s being accused of doing something like that.”
According to the lawsuit, Asinga contacted Gatorade again and requested unopened bottles of lot 22092117150234.
Gatorade sent AIU a different batch of bottles of Recovery Gummies that, according to the complaint, had been inspected by NSF and was accurately labeled as such.
“They did a bait-and-switch tactic,” said Alexis Chardon, the lawyer representing Asinga in court. “They said, ‘We don’t have the sealed supplement that we gave to Isam, but we have this other supplement. Why don’t you try this one?’ And that supplement was NSF tested. And they let that lie continue.”
“Gatorade fully complied with the Athletic Integrity Unit’s investigation, including providing evidence that the AIU accepted in its original ruling that its gummies were not contaminated with banned substances,” a Gatorade spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
According to the lawsuit, the AIU tested the candy canes in the container, which came back negative. After receiving the test results, the AIU banned Asinga for four years.
“Gatorade created, spread and encouraged a false narrative that Isam had adulterated the tested gummies because he was given ‘clean’ gummies,” the lawsuit states.
Trying to restore one’s reputation
On June 14, less than two weeks after the NSF published its Gatorade notice, Asinga received what he hoped would be a breakthrough: a representative from the AIU called Green to tell him that Gatorade had found and sent over an unopened bottle of the same batch of Recovery Gummies as Asinga’s. If the bottle was contaminated with GW1516, it would be crucial in overturning Asinga’s suspension.
The test came back negative, according to the lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit, Asinga felt “confused” and reached out to other athletes who attended the 2023 ceremony and found athletes with similar bottles of recovery gummies, which were then tested for GW1516 and also came back negative, according to the lawsuit.
“For a while it looked like we were in deeper waters,” Chardon said.
According to the lawsuit, Asinga’s team had another idea: On June 26, they asked for the original recovery gummies to be retested. They thought that GW1516 might have become undetectable over the past six months.
According to the lawsuit, the results came back on July 5: the gummy candy that had previously tested positive now tested negative.
“Gatorade’s delay denied Isam the opportunity to prove contamination within a sealed container of the same lot that he ingested and deprived him of the possibility of satisfying the AIU’s gold standard test for proving the innocent ingestion of a prohibited substance,” the lawsuit states.
Gatorade said in a statement that it “spent months locally searching for the specific lot number and provided the product to AIU as soon as it became available.”
Green said little testing is done for GW1516 because it is illegal. Green hopes to organise laboratory tests that can demonstrate GW1516 can become undetectable within six months. He plans to use the findings when he appeals to the Court of Arbitration for Sport later this year.
Ngozi said Wednesday was “the first day I’ve been able to take a deep breath and let it all out a little bit” because of the lawsuit against Gatorade. “As a parent, it’s so overwhelming. You never expect your child to have to fight for their character and their integrity for something they didn’t do.”
Over the past month, Asinga’s final hope of running at the Paris Olympics has faded. He remains optimistic that he’ll be a sprinter at Texas A&M next year. At times, he cried and became depressed. Over the winter, he stopped practicing for a few days and wondered if track and field was worth it. He still believes he’ll win.
“It’s tough,” Asinga said. “We’re having bad days. The clouds may be hanging over us, but they’ll clear up.”
