The double Olympic taekwondo champion Jade Jones denied ever taking performance-enhancing drugs after a shock first-round exit that came months after she escaped sanctions for missing a test in December.
Jones was beaten 2-1 by the Macedonian Miljana Reljikj, afterwards saying she “didn’t have the balls” to compete at her best. But she had arrived in Paris with lingering question marks around the saga, which saw her briefly suspended earlier this year until the UK Anti-Doping Agency (Ukad) ruled she had committed a no-fault doping violation on confidential medical grounds.
“I can confirm that I’ve never taken drugs. I’ve done hundreds of tests and since [the missed test] I’ve done 13 more tests, more than ever,” Jones said. “I’m obviously not on drugs, I just lost.”
There was further upset for Great Britain when Bradly Sinden, a silver medallist in Tokyo, pulled out of his bronze fight in the men’s 68kg event against Liang Yushuai through injury. Sinden fears he damaged his left medial collateral ligament during his quarter-final win over Marko Golubic. He was visibly cautious during his semi-final loss against the Jordanian Zaid Kareem and, admitting he cried afterwards, took the decision not to aggravate the problem by competing further.
Jones’s case arose when she failed to provide a sample to an official who arrived at her hotel room in Manchester on 1 December, explaining that she was undergoing dehydration training before a weigh-in and had neither eaten nor drank since 29 November. She signed a document saying she would be unable to take the test on those grounds, before providing a clean sample to a different tester 12 hours later. Conventionally a refused test is treated as a failed one and she explained that she had been unaware of the rules.
“I didn’t know what I was signing,” she said. “The drug test has come on dehydration day. You’re losing the weight and you haven’t eaten or drank for a few days. I said straight away: ‘Let’s go [to a dehydration bath at her home], I have to lose the weight’. And then basically she didn’t know if she could come or not.
“There was a lot of stress and I was waiting. I needed to dehydrate. I become stressed, I wasn’t in the right mind. I thought you could miss three [before being investigated].”
The no-fault ruling was reached after a psychiatrist assessed Jones’s “decision to refuse or failure to provide a sample occurred as a direct result of her cognitive impairment”. Detail about that condition is redacted in the Ukad report and Jones said she did not “want to go into that side of it”. Ukad ruled no fault or negligence on Jones’s part as a result of that finding, citing “very exceptional circumstances” and she was not banned. Refusing to provide a sample can, in the most serious cases, lead to a four-year suspension.
Jones was an Olympic gold medallist in 2012 and 2016 before crashing out in the first round at Tokyo 2020. The lost chance to win a record third title was confirmed three hours after her defeat at the Grand Palais, when Reljiki lost her quarter-final against Laetitia Aoun of Lebanon. Under the taekwondo competition’s labyrinthine rules, a fighter beaten before the semi-finals still has a chance to compete for bronze if their opponent goes all the way to the final.
“I’m devastated,” said Jones, who was tearful after . “I came here to win, I thought I could win, and on the day I didn’t have the balls that it took and that made the difference.
“I’m super proud of having the courage to try to do something that no one’s done. The more you win, the harder it gets, the pressure, the mental side. It’s tough. I came out today and didn’t have the balls to fight free and let my legs go and I’m just gutted that I didn’t show what I am capable of.”
Asked whether she would continue her career after this year’s setbacks, the 31-year-old replied: “I don’t know. Anything I do I commit 100%. So I’ll just go back and see my family and see what happens.”
The case ruling has, she believes, ensured her career will not be assessed alongside an asterisk. “I’m just so grateful, blessed that they looked into it, that I was cleared, I was in no fault,” she said. “It was a big story. It wasn’t one thing. I am grateful that they didn’t tarnish it.”
• This article was amended on 8 August 2024. Bradly Sinden’s suspected injury was to his medial collateral ligament, not medial cruciate ligament as an earlier version misnamed it.
