Suspended on Monday September 11 for suspicion of doping, after having tested positive for testosterone on August 20, Paul Pogba is now awaiting a second opinion. And the sporting future of the 2018 world football champion may only hang by a hair.
It is the analysis of one of his hairs which could reveal whether he took this forbidden testosterone accidentally or not! This hair analysis technique is not new, as it dates back to the late 1970s. It was the American Army which was at the origin: it wanted to know if the GIs who returned from Vietnam had not become addicted to opium or heroin there.
Why analyze a hair rather than blood or urine? Because hair is more reliable. And above all it allows you to go back in time. Each centimeter of hair represents what circulated in the body for a month. So on a 12 cm hair, you have a whole year. If every centimeter, for example, there is a trace of a prohibited substance, is that there are several takes in time. So doping is not really accidental!
Can the player be cleared?
Yes, especially if the concentration of product found in the part of the hair is very low. This is what happened to Richard Gasquet in 2009, who tested positive for cocaine. Traces of drugs were found in his urine but nothing in his hair. Which indicated that he was not a regular consumer and that, as cocaine is only detectable in a hair from a certain dose, that means this drug came from someone else.
Richard Gasquet had recounted having kissed several times a certain Pamela he met at a party. Gold the latter turned out, after analysis, to be a regular user of narcotics. It was through a kiss that a little substance found its way into the tennis player.
Is a shaved head undetectable?
No or else you also need to shave your chest and armpits because hair works too. And even the nails! And if you dye your hair, it slows down the analysis but it doesn’t prevent it. The hair is tough.
The evidence, Pascal Kintz, world-renowned toxicologist, has proven that Napoleon was poisoned when he found rat poison in his hair. Even crazier, he found traces of cocaine on Aztec mummies 4,000 years old! No need to tell your hairdresser about your life, your hair speaks for you!
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2023-09-15 15:37:21
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