With just days to go until the Olympic track and field trials, Shelby Houlihan—who holds the U.S. record in the 1,500 and 5,000 meter races—revealed she’s been banned from competing for four years following a positive steroid test result.
In a message to her Instagram followers on June 14, the 28-year-old runner maintained that the positive test came from eating a burrito in December that contained pig organ meat, which she said is known to have high amounts of nandrolone (an anabolic steroid). The Olympic athlete also noted that she received the results of her test in January and had to “google what she tested positive for.”
“I had never even heard of nandrolone,” she wrote. “I have since learned that it has long been understood by WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) that eating pork can lead to a false positive for nandrolone, since certain types of pigs produce it naturally in high amounts. Pig organ meat has the highest levels of nandrolone.”
