Nicole Walker acquitted of cocaine charges

It was shocking news that broke in August 2019.
Nicole Walker was on the Canadian team for the 2019 Pan Am Games. The tournament in Peru served as an Olympic qualifier for North America and Central and South America (Groups D and E).
Canada finished in 4th place in the Nations Cup, making it one of the three available Olympic qualifiers. The young amazon and student of Cian O'Conner also placed 4th in the individual classification. Her sport partner at that time was Falco van Spieveld.

Then in November 2019 the shock! The FEI published an announcement that Walker be suspended from competition.
The reason was a positive doping sample from Nicole Walker herself. She had tested positive for benzoylecgonine, a metabolite of cocaine.
This drug is among others on the list of banned substances for human athletes, the ADRHA.
The sample had been taken on August 7, the day of the team finals at the Pan Am Games.
The Panam Sports Disciplinary Commission found Walker guilty shortly thereafter and she was banned from competition. As a result, the Canadian was disqualified in both the team and individual events at the Pan Am Games and her results in the team events were replaced by those of the fourth Canadian team member, Lisa Carlsen. The Canadian team finished 7th and lost their Olympic qualification. The Argentine team then moved up in their place.

Following this, Team Canada as well as Nicole Walker herself appealed.

While the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) exonerated Walker in its award, the disqualification of the Canadian show jumping team remains.

But Walker denied these accusations from the beginning. Now it showed: On the morning of August 7, 2019, Walker took a tea at the hotel's breakfast service. By mistake, it was a single cup of coca tea instead of green tea that Walker consumed.

A statement issued by Equestrian Canada on the CAS award reads:

"EC is pleased that the CAS panel accepted that Nicole innocently drank a cup of coca tea believing it to be green tea. EC is further pleased that the CAS found that the Canadian Show Jumping Team was not warned about the distribution of coca-based products in Peru and that neither the Canadian Show Jumping Team nor Nicole knew that coca meant cocaine. Specifically, the CAS found that the ingestion of the banned substance contained in the tea "was the result, and only the result, of the inadvertent ingestion of cocaine.... as a result of the use of a tea bag containing cocaine that she had taken from the breakfast service area of the Los Incas Lima Hotel.

However, the EC is extremely disappointed that despite the Panel's recognition of Nicole's integrity and commitment to clean sport, her affected results in Lima 2019 were not restored, resulting in the Canadian Show Jumping Team remaining disqualified from the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

The EC has stood by Nicole throughout the disciplinary and appeal process, and together we will explore the possibility of appealing the CAS decision to the Swiss Federal Court in Lausanne, SUI."