Two teenage Japanese snowboarders have been banned from competition after being found guilty of smoking marijuana while on tour in the US in December last year, local media reported yesterday.
The Ski Association of Japan (SAJ) said traces of the drug were detected in the hair of the two boarders, whose names were not released because they are minors.
One of the athletes admitted smoking marijuana at a party in Colorado, where cannabis was legalized for recreational purposes in 2012, provided the user is 21 years old.
Both have been suspended indefinitely and could be kicked out of the Japanese team for the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, while the SAJ’s snowboarding head Fumikazu Hagiwara resigned over the incident.
“This will not have a good impact on the Rio, Pyeongchang or the Tokyo Olympics,” SAJ director Toshimasa Furukawa told local media when breaking the news on Wednesday, which marked 100 days before the start of this summer’s Rio Games.
“If they undergo rehabilitation, there is a chance for them [to compete in Pyeongchang],” added Furukawa, adding that Japan’s snowboarders have faced criticism at past Olympics for flouting team dress code. “But it is impossible to say now whether they have enough time.”
Japanese athletes were warned they could be kicked out of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics after snowboarder Kazuhiro Kokubo arrived in dreadlocks and with his uniform in “hip-hop” style — trousers pulled low over his hips and shirt hanging out — causing outrage from Cabinet-level lawmakers back home. The latest controversy comes after three Japan badminton players were booted off the national team earlier this month for visiting an illegal casino.
Gambling is largely illegal in Japan and that incident followed a betting scandal that rocked the country’s most popular sport, baseball, just as it is bidding for inclusion in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
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