German Wheelchair Basketball Player Ousted for Vanity

When Germany’s wheelchair basketball team (pictured above) defeated Israel on Tuesday to take fifth place in the Paralympic basketball competition, team mate Ahmet Coskun was not among the players. He was kicked out of the Games earlier in the day for testing positive for the banned substance, finasteride on August 23. Finasteride, used to prevent hair loss, is not known to have any performance enhancing effects, but it masks the use of other banned substances. Said Coskun, “I was thinking about my hair and had no idea that the drug, which is against hair loss, contained a banned substance. I’m very upset. I never intended to do doping.”

Coskun isn’t the only athlete to be kicked out of the Beijing Paralympic Games for doping. On Tuesday, Pakistani powerlifter Naveed Ahmed Butt, 37 was ousted from the Games for testing positive for the steroid methandienone metabolites on September 4.

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