French world champion fencer blames failed drugs test on 'sexual contact' with her American Olympic medallist partner - as she faces missing Paris 2024 over bodybuilding substance

French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus has attributed a positive doping test to the exchange of 'bodily fluids' with her partner, former fencer Race Imboden, in her fight to overturn her ban ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. 

The 32-year-old was handed her ban on February 8 after testing positive for banned substance ostarine, a product which can improve lean body mass and stimulate muscle growth, during an anti-doping assessment on January 14. 

A lynchpin member of the French fencing set-up, Thibus won silver in the team foil fencing event in Tokyo three years ago, and is keen to contest for medals on home soil in less than five months. 

As such, she is not looking to question the result of her Sample A analysis, but has stressed that she was 'exposed to contamination without (her) consent', via her fiance Imboden. 

According to Thibus' lawyer Joelle Monlouis, Thibus knows 'the source of her infection: her partner, Race Imboden. 

Ysaora Thibus (right) has claimed that her positive drugs test sample was contaminated due to substances ingested by her partner Race Imboden

The couple have been engaged since 2021 after first meeting at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games

The 32-year-old's lawyer issued a statement stressing that her client had been 'infected via bodily fluids'

'He took a product containing ostarine, which infected Ysaora,' Monlouis told De Telegraaf. 'The transmission that led to this infection occured via bodily fluids.'

At the time, Thibus expressed her 'total incomprehension, her immense surprise, and her dismay', as per a statement from the French Fencing Federation (FFE), with the Olympian reiterating her strong denial of knowingly taking the substances in her own statement at the time. 

'I categorically deny that I have used doping,' Thibus' statement read.  'My many negative doping tests are proof of this. 

'The Olympic Games in Paris are a childhood dream for me and I was shocked to hear this news. I will do everything I can to prove my innocence so that I can compete in the tournament that will be the highlight of my career.'

As she seeks to clear her name, Thibus' crucial difficulty will be the limited time she has to do so. 

'Our problem is the time available: we must resolve the matter as quickly as possible so that Ysaora can participate in the Olympic Games,' Monlouis' statement continued. 

'We did what was necessary to ensure that the tests were carried out as quickly as possible. We are ready and want the accelerated procedure to be initiated as soon as possible.'

In a bid to accelerate that process, the fencer will reportedly waive the analysis of Sample B ahead of the next step defined in article 7.4.1 of the International Fencing Federation (FIE) and provide proof that 'the violation probably involved a contaminated substance or that the violation involved the abuse of a substance.'

World champion fencer Thibus claimed the 2022 title in Cairo and is ranked eighth in the world

Three years ago, the fencer (right) claimed team silver in Japan at the postponed games

The Frenchwoman is determined to compete at her home Olympics in just four months time

Thibus could also see her ban reduced with the completion of substance abuse treatment programme 'approved by the FIE', dropping to between one and three months. 

Imboden is himself an Olympian, having competed in three Olympic games and won two team foil bronze medals. 

The American athlete retired from the sport in 2021 upon his participation in the Tokyo Games, where he won the second of his bronze medals. 

Thibus and Imboden met at a party during the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016 and became engaged shortly after returning from Tokyo at the couple's favourite hotel in Paris, La Pigalle. 

Imboden proposed with a diamond and sapphire ring five years' after their first meeting, and at the time highlighted the 'immediate understanding' the two athletes felt during the encounter in Brazil. 

'There was an immediate respect and understanding between us,' Imboden told People Magazine. 'We were drawn together by our want to build something new together. 

Imboden previously competed at three Olympic games, winning bronze for the US in 2021

Former World No 7 Richard Gasquet previously successfully overturned a ban arguing that he had been contaminated with cocaine via bodily fluids in 2009

'To follow our unique paths in sport, and build something even bigger outside of it. Growth has always been a priority and defining part of our relationship.'

Ahtletes across different sports have previously managed to successfully prove doping test contamination via bodily fluids, with the most notable case coming in 2009 with French tennis player Richard Gasquet's 'cocaine kiss'. 

The former World No 7 had a provisional 12-month ban overturned on appeal by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) after the panel accepted Gasquet's claim that cocaine had been found in his system after kissing a woman who had taken cocaine in a Miami nightclub. 

Despite the ITF and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) launching a bid to overturn the appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the court upheld the ruling, agreeing that 'the amount of cocaine metabolite (present in Gasquet's samples) was so minute that it must have reflected incidental exposure, rather than use in the amounts commonly taken by social users of cocaine.'