Norway Loses Olympic Show Jumping Bronze Over Positive Drug Test
The FEI announced yesterday that the Norwegian show jumping team has officially been stripped of their bronze medal because Tony Andre Hansen’s horse Campiro tested positive for the illegal substance capsaicin. The original fourth place team from Switzerland will now be recognized as the bronze medalists.
The FEI justified their decision by saying
“It is each Person Responsible’s personal duty to ensure that no Prohibited Substance is present in his or her Horse’s body during an Event. Persons Responsible are responsible for any Prohibited Substance found to be present in their Horse’s bodily Samples. Accordingly, it is not necessary that intent, fault, negligence or knowing Use on the Person Responsible’s part be demonstrated in order to establish an anti-doping rule or medication control violation.”
Hansen’s horse was one of five to test positive for prohibited substances at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. All the riders served suspensions. Hansen, however, was the only medal winner of the bunch. As a result of the positive test, Hansen was disqualified from the competition, which in turn dropped his top score from the Norwegian show jumping team score taking them out of the medals.
Regarding Horses is a blog for the every day horse enthusiast. We may not be professionals, but horses are in our blood! 
You are not covering news of USEF’s Horse/Equestrian of the Year awards?
I’m actually really excited this year because we have a great finalist for “Horse of the Year”… Adams Fire – an Arabian! An Arabian horses have been finalists three out of the last five times and yet … it’s been 5o years since our last win!
I would pass on the word. And what a great horse! Adams Fire is quite unique in heritage. There are four continents in the first four generations of his pedigree and he is actually half Arabian and half DHH (Saddlebred, Hackney). I always thought his background had a lot to do with how responsive and intelligent he is. He is what we expect from an Arabian horse but he is ALL American in his “melting pot” background and his extraordinary performance. This horse has so much merit… carrying three different riders into those National Championships.
Good luck to him! Keep up the great work!
You can actually vote here: http://www.usef.org/contentPage2.aspx?id=hotyaward
It’s too bad the whole team got dropped out of the medals, but if you’re going to do it, I guess you take the chance on getting disqualified. Have a Merry Christmas!
Man I would hate to loose an Olympic Medal because one of my teammates drugged a horse. It is a shame that these druggings had to mar the games. I think that the FEI really needs to work on making drug laws more uniform and easier to understand. Although it doesn’t seem like that would help in this case poor people like Courtney King-Dye would have been spared the embarssment of being wrongly punished.
Maybe the teams should conduct their own tests prior to the games. How awful to be stripped of a medal.
I saw his mention here so I thought I would share.
I was just on Facebook and discovered Adams Fire’s fan page. You should join. I wonder if other horses have one of these. It’s pretty neat.
Check it out here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Adams-Fire/41300508269?ref=s