Yesterday, it was announced that Jamaican sprinters Asafa Powell and Sherone Simpson had had their doping bans cut by 12 months.
The duo were initially given 18 month bans for testing positive for banned substances last year but the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has reduced the sanctions that were handed out, meaning both athletes can compete again with immediate effect.
But what bearing does CAS' ruling have on the sport?
We were joined on the line by exercise physiologist Dr Ross Tucker of The Science of Sport who spoke to us last year about the supplement industry within a sporting context.
"It's a difficult one. They claimed to have ingested the banned substance accidentally as part of a supplement that they were taking and given to them by their coach. Now, in the normal world, that's a viable excuse. But in sports it's not. The anti-doping code has something called strict liability which means that the athlete is responsible that anything that is in their body. It'll be interesting to see why the Court of Arbitration has reduced the ban to the extent that they have," said Tucker, who described the supplement industry as the "wild west" and believes the "likelihood of contamination is quite high" within the industry.
Adding that supplement companies are not accountable, he also went further.
"This decision, to some extent, rocks the whole anti-doping movement," said Tucker, adding that the initial 18 month ban was already more lenient than the usual sanctions imposed for doping offences.
He also believes that an "elite athlete cannot afford to be naive" when it comes to taking supplements, especially at a time when there is talk of introducing four-year bans.
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