When Canadian Ross Rebagliati won the first gold medal for snowboarding at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Japan, he unintentionally sparked a controversy whose effects are still playing out today.
After his win, Rebagliati tested positive for cannabis… but in 1998, cannabis was not on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)’s list of banned substances. WADA then added cannabis to their list of banned substances the following year, and it remained banned for fourteen years. In 2013, WADA revised some of their rules. The new rules increased the THC limit an athlete can have in their system by almost ten times. As long as the athlete didn’t smoke weed right before they compete, they should be testing at well under the limits put forth by WADA.