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National Post

Suspended sprinter's lawsuit against Gatorade over gummies is dismissed

A New York judge dismissed Issam Asinga's lawsuit against Gatorade, in which the suspended sprinter alleged the company gave him contaminated gummies at an awards banquet and withheld evidence that could have exonerated him before he received a four-year doping ban. Article content In siding with Gatorade's motion to dismiss Monday, U.S. District Judge Cathy Seibel did not make a judgment on the suit's claims. She wrote that Asinga could not sue for liability because he did not suffer a physical injury and that he did not qualify for consumer protection because he did not purchase the gummies. Article content 'The Court understands how unsatisfying this decision will be for Plaintiff,' Seibel wrote in the Southern District of New York. 'Taking the allegations in the Amended Complaint as true, he will … be deprived of his athletic career for four years through no fault of his own. Unfortunately, the causes of action he has asserted are not the right fit for the circumstances.' Article content Asinga can appeal the dismissal. His lawyer, Alexis Chardon, said the 20-year-old strongly disagrees with Seibel's decision and is weighing his options. Article content '[The] decision holds that a young man may be deprived of his athletic career through no fault of his own and be left without even an opportunity to prove his claim against the multinational corporation which he believes carelessly harmed him,' Chardon said. Article content Asinga sued Gatorade in July, alleging the company gave him 'recovery gummies' at an event honuoring him as the high school track and field athlete of the year that were tainted with cardarine, a banned fat metabolizer that has been found to cause cancer in lab animals. After Asinga tested positive, he sent the gummies to a lab that found the gummies contained traces of cardarine. The container, according to internal Gatorade emails included in Asinga's lawsuit, had been incorrectly labeled certified. Article content Article content When Asinga asked Gatorade for another container of gummies from the same lot to be tested, the company told him it could not find one. It instead sent a container from the same 'batch' to be tested, according to the lawsuit. When those gummies tested negative for cardarine, the Athletics Integrity Unit, global track and field's anti-doping agency, handed Asinga a four-year ban that cost him two under-20 world records, a chance to compete for Suriname at the Paris Olympics and his athletic scholarship to Texas A&M. Article content Gatorade filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit in January. It won that motion Monday. Article content 'For over 60 years Gatorade has provided athletes products that are safe for consumption and backed by science,' the company said in a statement Tuesday. 'We are pleased by the Court's decision to dismiss the case as there was no merit or evidence to support the claims asserted.'