German bowler Laura Beuthner has been stripped of her gold medal at the 2017 World Games after testing positive for a banned substance. It’s the first doping scandal in bowling’s history at the regional or international level.

Beuthner defeated Team USA’s Kelly Kulick, 2-0, in Wroclaw, Poland, to win the gold medal in women’s singles on July 21. Kulick will now be awarded the gold medal retroactively. Clara Guerrero of Colombia moves up to the silver, while Daria Kovalova of Ukraine will be awarded the bronze medal.

As is the standard practice at international bowling events, medalists are subjected to random drug testing. After winning the gold medal, Beuthner was tested and both samples came back positive for the drug hydrochlorothiazide.

Hydrochlorothiazide is considered a masking agent, which can be used to hide other banned substances, and is prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

“The World Games has taken an extensive amount of time (deciding) this,” World Bowling CEO Kevin Dornberger said. “I suspect, I don’t know for sure, but I suspect they have only had a very limited number of cases like this, and this is our first experience with this type of thing. So, it was two organizations trying to be sure they followed due process without a lot of experience.”

FloBowling reached out to Beuthner for comment and she denied any intentional wrong doing, saying the only medications she was taking around the time of the testing were ibuprofen and an approved nasal spray.

“I didn’t even know what kind of substance hydrochlorothiazide is,” Beuthner said. “I thought many times (about) what kind of medicine I took during the World Games or directly (before) the World Games. As I wrote on the doping paper, I just took ibuprofen and a spray for my nose. Both are allowed to take.”

Beuthner has exhausted her appeals on the matter and the decision will stand, Dornberger said. 

“I had a lawyer for this process, and I asked for help from my federation,” Beuthner said. “I feel alone. Yes, my federation tries somehow to help me but even for them it’s a new thing.”

Beuthner does not deny the findings of hydrochlorothiazide in her system but said she has spent exhaustive time researching the matter to try to figure out what might have happened.

“I know that they found that substance in my body and I would never say anything different,” Beuthner said. “But it’s not directly doping, it’s something to hide doping. Second, every doctor says the value of hydrochlorothiazide is so little that you can’t use it to hide something. I also went to a doctor in a hospital in Berlin, which works somehow with the DOSB (German Olympics Sports Federation). He told me that athletes at the Olympic Games had the same substance in their body, and they checked directly at the Olympic Games the medicine they took. They found out that the substance was in Ibuprofen, which were not clean. So, how should I know, after 10 months, out of which box of Ibuprofen I took the pills at the World Games?”

Upon learning of the positive test in early November, Dornberger said World Bowling, the international governing body for the sport, was forced to provisionally suspend Beuthner in advance of the 2017 World Championships in Las Vegas.

“We provisionally suspended her from World Bowling based on the positive test and the main reason was to protect the German team,” Dornberger said. “If she bowls in any of the events in which they win medals, they all lose the medals potentially and that was a result we couldn’t have happen.”

Upon the World Games’ recent final ruling stripping Beuthner of the gold medal, Dornberger said World Bowling will now decide her future status within the sport by way of a hearing with its anti-doping committee. A suspension could range from time served to a maximum of four years.

“The first series of procedures was the World Games, the second series is us and the hearing is scheduled for within the next week,” Dornberger said. “If the committee has sympathy or believes it was an innocent situation, they could go with no suspension or six months, which would be time served. They can go anywhere from zero to four years.”