Issamade “Issam” Asinga, the teenager The Washington Post calls “the fastest high-school sprinter in history,” and Gatorade, the drink brand synonymous with sports, are in a fierce reputational battle. It’s heating up, as the runner just sued the company in federal court.

In May, following an investigation, anti-doping overseer Athletics Integrity Unit suspended Asinga, 19, from competing in track and field for four years after he tested positive for a banned substance, cardarine. The prohibition, which Asinga has appealed, includes the upcoming Paris Olympics and it may imperil his scholarship at Texas A&M University. It nixes his under-20 record for the 100-meter from last year (9.89 seconds).

Asinga contends the culprit is a bottle of Gatorade Recovery Gummies for Athletes the company gave him, along with other gifts, at a ceremony honoring him last year. The sprinter says the bottle tested positive for cardarine. He also contends the drinks brand is lying about its product to avoid reputational harm. He sued in Manhattan federal court July 10. Gatorade denies the gummies were tainted.

Promising Career

So, we have an athlete at the beginning of a promising career desperately trying to reverse his ban from his sport and save his reputation by pointing fingers at a big company, and the big company trying to aid its own reputation by arguing it’s done nothing wrong.

And they’re speaking out in the press, with both sides widely quoted, particularly in a lengthy Washington Post piece that comes off as a human-interest story, a PR win for Asinga. He gave WaPo an interview on Zoom with his lawyers (and apparently his father) joining in. “You’re either guilty or you’re not,” Asinga said. “I know I’m not, so I’ve got to chase my dream.”

For its part, Gatorade issued a more forceful corporate statement than is typical, a nice reminder that even big companies can give the public their side of the story during litigation. This crisis goes to the heart of what Gatorade does for a living, so it really can’t play games (see what we did there?).

Statement Quotes

WaPo and Reuters quoted from Gatorade’s statement:

“The product in question is completely safe and the claims made are false.”

“Gatorade products are FDA compliant and safe for athlete consumption, which was validated by the findings of the Athletics Integrity Unit investigation.”

“Gatorade fully complied with the Athletics Integrity Unit investigation, including producing evidence that was accepted by the AIU that the gummies were not contaminated with the banned substance in their original ruling.”

That last paragraph gets to the heart of the matter: the twists and turns of the gummies testing. At first Gatorade told Asinga it couldn’t find a sample from the same lot for him to test. It gave him a sample from a different batch, which came back negative. Then, six months later, it said it did find one from the same lot, but it too tested negative. Asinga contends that’s because over time cardarine becomes undetectable.

Case Theory

His theory of the case is that Gatorade purposefully withheld a sample from the same lot until it would no longer test positive. The company originally refused to provide a sealed bottle from the same batch “because it feared harm to its own reputation — even though it knew this choice would devastate Issam’s,” according to his complaint.

Another major issue is that Asinga’s gifted bottle was labeled “NSF Certified for Sport,” an assurance it was free from banned substances. But it turns out NSF, which so certifies products, didn’t test that lot, and this is a big part of Gatorade’s embarrassment.

On June 4, NSF issued a public notice that the lot and one for a similar Gatorade product “have not been tested, evaluated or certified by NSF and are not authorized to use the NSF certification mark or make any claims of NSF certification.”

Photo Credit: cfg1978/Shutterstock

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