ChatterBank0 min ago
The Sad Tale Of Alain Baxter And Vicks
13 Answers
This is the sad tale of Alain Baxter ... for anyone who has forgotten poor Alain.
Alain skied for GB at The Salt Lake City Olympics in ... thinks, thinks ... 2002.
He won Bronze in the Alpine Skiing. GB's first ever Olympic medal on snow.
He returned home to Scotland as a national hero. During he Games, he had dyed the blue and white Scottish flag on his hair, which got him a smack on the wrist from Team GB.
He was then told that he had failed a drugs test, and was being asked to return his Bronze medal.
This came as a surprise to Alain, who had never taken any performance enhancing drugs, and had followed all the Team's advice about what to avoid.
Alan's Bronze medal was given to the skier who came 4th, and Alain was banned from competitive skiing.
Well, it turned out that, when Alain had arrived in Salt Lake City, he had bought a Vicks Sinex nasal sniffer. Unbeknown to Alain, the decongestant chemicals used in Vicks in the US are slightly different from in the UK. Vicks are on the "safe to use" list in the UK. One of the chemicals in a US Vicks is a teeny, teeny, teeny trace element, which is some sort of variation, of some banned substance. I can't remember the name.
Anyway, the "banned substance" was traced back to the Vicks nasal sniffer.
The International Ski Federation accepted Alain's appeal, and the ban was lifted.
The British Olympic Committee then tried to get Alain's medal reinstated, but the Olympic sports appeal thing people (Google it, someone) refused, even though the microscopic trace of the substance from the nasal sniffer had been taken inadvertently.
In any case, it's not a performance related substance, it's just a decongestant, said the doctors, and the people from Vicks.
But Alain's Bronze medal was never reinstated.
And that is why Jenny Jones is considered to have won our first Olympic medal on snow.
Poor Alain.
There is a story that the guy who came 4th sent the Bronze medal back to Alain himself, but I'm not sure if that's true or not.
So Alain Baxter missed out on an Olympic medal, all because of a Vicks nasal sniffer.
On the plus side, at least he didn't have a blocked up nose, so "glass half full" and all that.
Alain skied for GB at The Salt Lake City Olympics in ... thinks, thinks ... 2002.
He won Bronze in the Alpine Skiing. GB's first ever Olympic medal on snow.
He returned home to Scotland as a national hero. During he Games, he had dyed the blue and white Scottish flag on his hair, which got him a smack on the wrist from Team GB.
He was then told that he had failed a drugs test, and was being asked to return his Bronze medal.
This came as a surprise to Alain, who had never taken any performance enhancing drugs, and had followed all the Team's advice about what to avoid.
Alan's Bronze medal was given to the skier who came 4th, and Alain was banned from competitive skiing.
Well, it turned out that, when Alain had arrived in Salt Lake City, he had bought a Vicks Sinex nasal sniffer. Unbeknown to Alain, the decongestant chemicals used in Vicks in the US are slightly different from in the UK. Vicks are on the "safe to use" list in the UK. One of the chemicals in a US Vicks is a teeny, teeny, teeny trace element, which is some sort of variation, of some banned substance. I can't remember the name.
Anyway, the "banned substance" was traced back to the Vicks nasal sniffer.
The International Ski Federation accepted Alain's appeal, and the ban was lifted.
The British Olympic Committee then tried to get Alain's medal reinstated, but the Olympic sports appeal thing people (Google it, someone) refused, even though the microscopic trace of the substance from the nasal sniffer had been taken inadvertently.
In any case, it's not a performance related substance, it's just a decongestant, said the doctors, and the people from Vicks.
But Alain's Bronze medal was never reinstated.
And that is why Jenny Jones is considered to have won our first Olympic medal on snow.
Poor Alain.
There is a story that the guy who came 4th sent the Bronze medal back to Alain himself, but I'm not sure if that's true or not.
So Alain Baxter missed out on an Olympic medal, all because of a Vicks nasal sniffer.
On the plus side, at least he didn't have a blocked up nose, so "glass half full" and all that.
Answers
1 to 13 of 13
Alain was on 'Reporting Scotland' (which follows the BBC1 6:00 pm news) and said that he never got his medal. Shame!
15:07 Tue 11th Feb 2014
.
err well I only feel partly sorry for this fella
I feel sorrier for the water skiers in the Zummerset levels.
Unwilling participants - no drugs at the end of the day -
trainer - that would be Lord Smith came down with something stuck up his nose - and said to the punters - " the results are MEANT to look like this and anyway it is not wet in Whitehall "
and then he b+ggered off back to London
and they stayed in their pools of stinking sewage
another sad sad story _ I find it sadder actually
err well I only feel partly sorry for this fella
I feel sorrier for the water skiers in the Zummerset levels.
Unwilling participants - no drugs at the end of the day -
trainer - that would be Lord Smith came down with something stuck up his nose - and said to the punters - " the results are MEANT to look like this and anyway it is not wet in Whitehall "
and then he b+ggered off back to London
and they stayed in their pools of stinking sewage
another sad sad story _ I find it sadder actually
1 to 13 of 13
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