Issam Asinga Files Multi Million Dollar Lawsuit vs Gatorade

Issam Asinga, the fastest teen sprinter ever, sued Gatorade in federal court yesterday (lawsuit at bottom of this page), claiming the Gatorade Recovery Gummies he received for being the Gatorade Track Athlete of the Year in 2023 were responsible for him for testing positive for banned substance GW1516 and receiving a four year doping suspension from the sport.

Assinga seeks to “recoup the millions of dollars he has lost in economic opportunities, as well as compensation for the devastating emotional harm he has suffered” and he seeks actual damages, punitive damages and treble damages under a New York and Texas statute.

Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post has an excellent recap of everything including the lawsuit here. A highly recommended read.

LetsRun.com reported in depth on this story earlier this week before the lawsuit was filed which you can find here.

New Revelations from Lawsuit

For those, of you who already read the LetsRun.com piece, the lawsuit has quite a few updates.

1. Gatorade in June did find and provide Asinga with a sealed container of Gatorade gummies from the same lot number that he received at the Athlete of the Year ceremony. These gummies tested NEGATIVE for GW1516. Asinga had contended these would test positive and prove he had taken contaminated gummies from Gatorade.
2. Asinga still believing his innocence, then found another Gatorade Player of the Year from another sport who still had some gummies, and sent these opened container of gummies in to get tested. They too tested NEGATIVE for GW1516. The lawsuit says, “Issam then realized then that something was amiss. Could it be that cardarine was unstable, and no longer detectable?”
3. Asinga then directed the lab to retest his own gummies that had tested positive for GW1516. On this subsequent retest, they tested NEGATIVE as well.
4. Asinga’s claim is that Gatorade’s delay not only made it impossible for him to prove his innocence as the GW1516 was no longer detectable, but that this delay by Gatorade was intentional.  The lawsuit says, “Aware that cardarine would not be detectable in the supplement by June 2024, Gatorade knew that turning over a sealed version from the lot number 22092117150234 for testing at that time would further the false impression that that it was Issam, not Gatorade, who was responsible for his failed drug test.”
5. Asinga claims that months before Asinga received his gummies that Gatorade knew they were improperly labeled as NSF certified and that an email from October 2022 from the manufacturer of the Gummies (Better Nutritionals) to Gatorade proves this. The email was obtained from Better Nutritionals bankruptcy proceedings.
6. Asinga’s lawsuit alleges that Gatorade pulled the gummies from the marketplace in March 2023 (before they were given to him by Gatorade).
7. Asinga’s lawsuit says “Federal Regulations require that manufacturers of dietary supplements of this nature, “collect and hold reserve samples of each lot of packaged and labelled dietary supplements “which they distribute. This requirement exists specifically for testing in situations where contamination is alleged.”
8. The lawsuit also shares a text exchange between Asinga’s mother, Ngozi, and Issam’s coach, Gerald Phiri, where she asks if Issam can eat the gummies. Phiri asks to see the front side of the bottle and then replies, “Gatorade doesn’t make products that are against sporting rules.”
9. Gatorade provided a statement to the Washington Post saying, “The product in question is completely safe and the claims made are false. … Gatorade products are FDA compliant and safe for athlete consumption, which was validated by the findings of the Athletics Integrity Unit investigation.”

You can view the lawsuit here:

Download (PDF, 1.48MB)

Discuss the lawsuit in our forums: MB: Asinga Sues Gatorade