Published3. May 2024, 09:46
Handball: Nikola Portner’s B sample also positive
The second analysis confirmed the result of the first: there were traces of methamphetamine in the urine of the Swiss international goalkeeper, who faces up to four years of suspension.
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Renaud Tschoumy
Swiss goalkeeper Nikola Portner is in trouble.
AFP
Will Nikola Portner be able to play handball again soon? The 30-year-old Swiss international goalkeeper, suspended since April 9 after a positive test for methamphetamine in the Bundesliga championship – he plays for SC Magdeburg –, received bad news on Thursday: the B sample of his anti-doping test was positive, just like sample A.
It was a laboratory in Kreischa, very close to Dresden, which carried out this second analysis and which disclosed the results, according to the German press agency DPA. The presence of methamphetamine (also called Crystal Meth) in Portner’s urine is therefore confirmed. In truth, this result is not a surprise: it is very rare that the analysis of a sample B leads to a different result than that of sample A.
He faces up to four years of suspension
Portner’s fight, which has the support of his coaches and teammates, will therefore consist of proving that he ingested this substance involuntarily – something he proclaimed as soon as the results of the anti-doping test were revealed .
In addition, the concentration of methamphetamine in his urine seems tiny: we are talking about 78 nanomoles per milliliter of urine (a figure not officially confirmed), i.e. a dose which would be undetectable by the rapid tests of the German police in the event of a roadside check.
Regardless, now that the analysis of the B sample is positive, the fate of Nikola Portner is in the hands of the Doping Commission of the German Handball Federation (DHB). This will open disciplinary proceedings shortly. The goalkeeper and captain of the Swiss handball team risks up to four years of suspension.