Alain Baxter: The Medal That Was Taken Away
Alain Baxter finished third in the 2002 Salt Lake City slalom, then had the bronze stripped after a US Vicks inhaler containing levomethamphetamine.
On 23 February 2002, Alain Baxter of Aviemore, Scotland, crossed the finish line third in the men’s slalom at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. He had come back from eighth after his first run to finish on the podium, a recovery that required real skiing under pressure, not luck. For a matter of weeks, he was the holder of the only Olympic alpine skiing medal Britain had ever won. Then the medal was taken away.
The circumstances of what followed are well-documented and, from a British perspective, deeply frustrating. Baxter had used a Vicks Sinex nasal inhaler purchased in the United States. The US formulation of that product contained levomethamphetamine (levmetamfetamine), a compound not present in the equivalent UK product. Levomethamphetamine is a less psychoactive isomer used as a nasal decongestant. The Court of Arbitration for Sport, in its October 2002 ruling, found no evidence of intentional doping and accepted that the use was inadvertent. They upheld the disqualification anyway, on the basis that strict liability, the rule that athletes are responsible for any substance in their body regardless of intent, applied.
The bronze medal was never returned.
Career Overview
Full name: Alain Baxter Born: 26 December 1973, Edinburgh, Scotland Discipline: Slalom Winter Olympics: 2002 Salt Lake City, 2006 Turin British titles: Seven (slalom) Notable: First British alpine skier to win an Olympic medal; medal subsequently stripped
Background
Baxter grew up in Aviemore, which gives him something unusual among British alpine ski racers: a genuine highland skiing background. The Cairngorm ski area is on his doorstep, and he developed as a racer through the Scottish racing system before progressing to the British team and the World Cup circuit.
He was a specialist slalom racer and won the British slalom title seven times, a number that speaks to sustained domestic dominance across a long career. On the World Cup circuit, he was a consistent points scorer rather than a regular podium finisher in the years leading up to 2002, but his results showed he was capable of performances well above his typical ranking on the right day.
Salt Lake City, 23 February 2002
The men’s slalom at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics was held at Deer Valley Resort. Baxter was eighth after the first run. It was not a position from which you expect a podium finish, but slalom is volatile: conditions change between runs, and the margin between eighth and a medal can be closed by a clean, aggressive second run.
He skied an excellent second run. The final result put him third, behind Jean-Pierre Vidal of France (who won gold) and Sébastien Amiez of France (silver). Baxter had become the first British alpine skier to win an Olympic medal.
The subsequent doping test detected methamphetamine at a very low concentration. Investigation established that this came from levomethamphetamine in the US-formulation Vicks inhaler. Levomethamphetamine is the levo (left-handed) isomer of methamphetamine. It is an over-the-counter decongestant in the United States; the right-handed (dextro) isomer is the psychoactive stimulant that is a controlled substance. The two are chemically distinct and have different effects entirely.
The UK formulation of the same Vicks product did not contain this compound. Baxter was not aware of the difference. There was, and is, no credible suggestion that he used the inhaler for performance-enhancing reasons: it would not have worked for that purpose.
The CAS panel accepted all of that. They disqualified him anyway.
The CAS Decision
The Court of Arbitration for Sport issued its ruling in October 2002. The panel found:
- There was no intentional doping
- There was no performance enhancement
- The use was inadvertent, caused by a product difference between the UK and US formulations
- Strict liability nonetheless applied under the applicable anti-doping rules
- The disqualification was upheld
It remains one of the most widely-cited cases in the strict liability debate in sports law. The argument for strict liability, that athletes must be responsible for everything in their bodies because any other standard creates too much room for deliberate evasion, is a legitimate principle in anti-doping. But its application in Baxter’s case exposed the harshest edge of that principle, where an unequivocal innocent comes off worse because the rules have no mechanism for nuance.
The IOC did not restore the medal. The bronze on the official record books went to Benjamin Raich of Austria, who had finished fourth.
2006 Turin
Baxter continued competing after the disqualification and made a second Olympic appearance at the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics. That he kept going, kept training, kept qualifying, kept racing at the top level, is its own statement. He retired from international competition in 2009.
Legacy
The question of Alain Baxter’s Olympic medal does not have a clean resolution, and it probably never will. The rules were applied correctly under the strict liability standard that governs anti-doping. The outcome, that a Scottish skier who bought a nasal decongestant at an American pharmacy lost the only Olympic alpine medal Britain had ever won, is also genuinely unjust by any ordinary moral standard.
Those two things can both be true. What is unambiguous is that he crossed the finish line third on 23 February 2002, that he skied an excellent race, and that no British alpine skier has stood on an Olympic podium since.
Alain Baxter finished third in the men’s slalom at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. The result was subsequently disqualified following a positive test for levomethamphetamine found in a US-formulation Vicks inhaler. The Court of Arbitration for Sport found no evidence of intentional use but upheld the disqualification under strict liability rules. The medal was never returned.