A Texas therapist faces up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty on Monday to supplying performance-enhancing drugs to Olympic athletes including banned Nigerian sprinter Blessing Okagbare, US authorities said.
Eric Lira, a “naturopathic” therapist based in the city of El Paso, is the first individual to be convicted under a new US law introduced in the wake of Russia’s state-backed Olympic doping scandals, the Department of Justice said in a statement.
The 2020 law, named after Russian whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov, enables US authorities to prosecute individuals involved in international doping fraud conspiracies.
Lira was found to have supplied drugs to Okagbare in the build-up to the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Source: Wires
