It was announced recently that Australian professional road racing cyclist Nathan O’Neil tested positive for the appetite suppressant Phentermine at the 2007 Tour of Elk Grove (Illinois), where he had won the prologue time trial and the overall title. O’Neill is an 8-time Australian national time trial champion, and although he quickly admitted to taking the drug for its intended use (to lose weight) out of competition and not for any performance enhancement purposes, his team – Health Net Pro Cycling Team – terminated his contract immediately, and it is expected that he will also face some official suspension from the sport for a period of months (minimum) because of the positive test result.

In the professional cycling world, Phentermine is not banned for use out-of-competition, but it seems that O’Neill made some sort of error in his calculations / estimations in terms of when to stop taking the prescription, as it seemingly had a longer than expected clearance time for the drug to leave his system.

Photo by Luke Seemann