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Skeleton Racer to Put Best Face Forward
The skeleton racer Zach Lund just wants people to look him in the eye. Since returning to competition earlier this month after a positive doping test led to a yearlong suspension, he says longtime friends cannot help but look at the top of his head in midconversation.
“Their gaze wanders from my eyes up to my hairline,” Lund said yesterday, laughing during a teleconference. “It’s definitely a little irritating, but, oh well.”
Lund was barred from competition after testing positive for finasteride, a performance-enhancing substance that he argued came into his system through Propecia, a hair-loss medication.
“I don’t want to forget about it,” Lund said. “It’s something that happened, but I don’t want to get stuck on it.”
He is back now, competing this week at World Cup skeleton races in Calgary, Alberta. Extremely cold temperatures yesterday forced organizers to postpone the race for fear that the athletes, who ride face first down a luge track, would become frostbitten.
Lund, a 27-year-old Salt Lake City native, said that he used his college savings on legal representation, and that he was having trouble financing himself in a low-profile sport at a low point in the four-year Olympic cycle.
The positive drug test, the resulting suspension and the flurry of legal appeals that followed came just weeks before the 2006 Olympics in Turin, Italy. Lund was considered a strong contender for a medal.
Lund’s appeals failed and he missed the Games, but the Court of Arbitration for Sport — the final authority in Olympic disputes — officially recognized his good faith and reduced his ban to the 12-month minimum.
“The victory part was that they gave him the absolute minimum that they felt was allowed under the rules,” said Howard Jacobs, the lawyer who advised Lund through the process. “But you can’t replace the Olympics.”
Because the court backdated Lund’s suspension to the date of the failed test, instead of the date of the hearing, he completed his ban on Nov. 9. That day, Lund competed in the United States skeleton national team trials, which were halfway over. He won that day’s race and the next two, and qualified for the final spot on the national team despite having missed the earlier portion of the event.