Tennis player who claimed positive methamphetamine test was caused by kiss suspended four years

Goncalo Oliveira, a professional tennis player representing Venezuela, was suspended for four years Friday by the International Tennis Integrity Agency after testing positive for methamphetamine, an agency statement confirmed. The 30-year-old Portuguese-born athlete argued that the positive result came from a kiss, but an independent tribunal rejected his explanation.

Oliveira was provisionally suspended in January after an in-competition test at an ATP Challenger event in Manzanillo, Mexico, in November 2024 revealed the banned stimulant in both his A and B samples. Methamphetamine is classified as a non-specified substance under the World Anti-Doping Agency Prohibited List, which carries a mandatory suspension for positive findings. 

Oliveira’s four-year ban, which takes credit for time already served under provisional suspension, will run through Jan. 16, 2029. He forfeited prize money, results and ranking points from the event where he tested positive, as well as from subsequent tournaments prior to the provisional suspension.

The tribunal reviewed Oliveira’s claim that the substance entered his system unintentionally, either through kissing or environmental contamination. The panel concluded that he failed to provide “clear, cogent, persuasive or concrete evidence” to support either scenario.

Oliveira, who reached a career-high doubles ranking of 77th in 2020, is now barred from competing, coaching or attending any sanctioned tennis events during his period of ineligibility.

While unusual, Oliveira’s case is part of a rare group of doping incidents linked to intimate contact. In 2009, French tennis player Richard Gasquet avoided a ban after his positive cocaine test was traced to kissing a woman at a nightclub. 

More recently, French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus was cleared after testing positive for ostarine, with the Court of Arbitration for Sport determining the contamination occurred through nine days of kissing her partner at the time, American fencer Race Imboden, who had taken the substance. The tribunal concluded that the prolonged intimate contact could account for the positive test, allowing Thibus to compete at the Paris Olympics, where she placed 28th in the individual foil and fifth with the French team.