Pro triathlete provisionally suspended for doping blames sex

Swiss pro Imogen Simmonds has been provisionally suspended for doping. The ruling stems from an out-of-competition test on Dec. 8 of last year. She was found to have the banned substance ligandrol in her system.

Ligandrol is used to improve lean muscle mass and has been on WADA’s banned substance list for almost a decade. Simmonds spoke out, revealing she engaged professional services to investigate how the substance entered her system. On a social media post she shared that the findings suggest it was transferred to her via bodily fluids from her partner.

Sex at the root of dirty test result

“Through investigation and research, it was discovered that, unknown to me, my longtime partner had been ingesting ligandrol to help improve his own personal physique around the time fo the positive test,” Simmonds said on her Instagram account.

Engaging in sex on the day of the test, and the day before, she believed the substance entered her system. The test occurred about a week before she finished fourth at the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Taupo, New Zealand. Two other tests were administered around this time. Both came back negative. One was six days prior to the failed test, and the other 22 days after.

 

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Simmonds claimed she had no idea when her test come back positive that she had ligrandol in her system or how it got there. She added that the amount that was found in her system amounted was “equivalent to a dash of salt in an Olympic-size swimming pool and would have never provided me with any performance-enhancing benefit.”

The amount is reportedly picogram levels of a metabolite of the banned substance.

Simmonds initiated her own investigation

When she received the news, Simmonds said she immediately took action hiring legal counsel and initiating an investigation of her own. She and her partner voluntarily submitted hair samples. Hers came back negative while her partner’s came back positive. Simmonds claimed this established that she had never taken ligandrol.

Her pro career has lead to many podiums over the years in Ironman and Ironman 70.3 races, PTO’s T100 and the Challenge series. She did one better in the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in 2023 taking bronze, and silver at the Ironman 70.3 European Championship Tallinn the same year. In 2021 she won Ironman 70.3 Aix-en-Provence, and podiumed that year at 70.3 Dubai and the full distance Ironman Findland Kuopio-Tahko. She also had four top 10 finishes on the T100 circuit in 2024, finishing ninth overall.

She assured her fans she has hired experts to help her navigate this process and will share any evidence with Ironman and the ITA by the deadlines and proper procedures.