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Park’s agency Team GMP announced that he had failed a doping test. The agency said that Park had tested positive for Nebido

South Korean swimmer and Olympic medalist Park Tae-hwan, 26, whose doping test results came back positive, has to wait until the end of the month for a hearing with the anti-doping committee of international swimming organization FINA, but South Korean prosecutors have already drawn their own conclusion. Prosecutors recently wrapped up their investigation, finding that Park did not realize that the injection contained a banned substance.

banned substance that increased his testosterone levels. (by Kim Seong-gwang

On Feb. 6, the second criminal division at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, led by Lee Du-bong, booked without detention a doctor surnamed Kim on charges of violating the medical code and malpractice. Kim allegedly injected Park with a substance containing the male hormone testosterone and then failed to record this in his consultation record.

Park and his managers warned the doctor on multiple occasions to avoid any substances that could cause complications in the doping test. Despite this, the doctor allegedly gave Park a 4ml injection of Nebido, a substance containing testosterone whose use is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), on July 29, 2014.

At the time, the doctor told Park that there was nothing to worry about since the substance is naturally produced inside the body.

The prosecutors believe that Park did not have adequate information about the substance and that Kim did not realize that testosterone was a banned substance either. However, even though Park warned the doctor about banned substances a number of times after beginning treatment at Kim’s clinic in Nov. 2013, the doctor injected him with Nebido without adequately informing him about the ingredients or potential side effects of the substance, the prosecutors concluded, leading them to charge him with malpractice.

The prosecutors discovered that a warning was written on the bottle of Nebido stating that it could result in positive results in doping tests.

Noting that a German doctor who had deceived nine swimmers into taking testosterone, believing that it was a health supplement, between 1975 and 1984 was convicted of causing bodily harm, the prosecutors concluded that a doctor who prescribed a substance that can cause bodily changes without offering an adequate explanation can be charged with causing bodily harm.

When Park tested positive for doping on September 3, 2014, just before the 2014 Incheon Asian Games, he brought charges against Kim, believing that the injection he had been given was to blame.

The prosecutors reviewed a number of recordings of conversations between Park’s family members and managers and staff at Kim’s clinic and called in around 10 people connected with the case for questioning.

By Jung Hwan-bong, staff reporter

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