A flipbook of recent events in the life of Canadian boatman Laurence Vincent Lapointe will flicker in these images: a tainted kiss, doping bouts, humiliation from a drug hoax label, a confession, honor restored – and now the bronze medal of redemption.
“It’s hard to describe right now. It’s still quite surreal. Everything that’s happened over the years is insane,” said 29-year-old Vincent-Lapointe after winning bronze in the women’s double 500m canoe on Saturday Said after emerging from a spirited plunge in the waters of Tokyo Bay with her teammate Katie Vincent, her second medal after a silver in the 200m event in Tokyo.
#teamcanada Just recently won his 23rd Olympic medal #tokyo2020, Canada’s biggest ever medal at a non-excluded Olympic Summer Games, courtesy of Laurence Vincent Lapointe and Katie Vincent, who won bronze in the women’s C2 500 meters. pic.twitter.com/84hRjyqmPj
— Team Canada PR (@TeamCanadaPR) August 7, 2021
The terror began in 2019 with a kiss that the 13-time world champion’s world would unravel. “I was with that person for five years and just made one kiss happen,” Vincent Lapointe told CBC Sports.
She was chilling in a hotel room at a training camp in Germany ahead of the canoe sprint world championships when an email made a blast. A mail from a lawyer saying he had been suspended was “a serious and scary letter”. He didn’t even read the first sentence because a thought came up: “Is this a punk show?” An American hidden-camera practical-joke show by actor Ashton Kutcher where he punishes celebrities. It was not. And once her coach confirmed the gravity in the hotel aisle, she started screaming.
An immediate four-year ban followed for testing positive for Ligandrol, a muscle-building substance similar to a steroid. The suspension also left Canada a lone quota place for Tokyo. No one was happy. “It was madness. It was crazy. The media said I was guilty. For a few months people said the same thing,” Vincent Lapointe said.
She went through everything in her mind: what she ate, drank, who she met. With her hair test came the first positive news: She tested negative. Yet, if he was to convince a tribunal that he had been implicated, he would have to trace the source.
For two years she could not compete in a race, her Olympic dreams drowned in a watery grave.
Inaugural silver medalist Laurence Vincent-Lapointe in the women’s C-1 200 meters.#tokyo2020 #teamcanada pic.twitter.com/MeAkowP9AF
— Lucas Weiss (@Weesesports) 5 August 2021
She suspected her boyfriend of the time. But despite months of chat, he didn’t scream. “He was the closest person to me.” She kept pressing and months later, she finally admitted that she was taking the substance. “I was so relieved. But so crazy. It was madness. I’m the most paranoid about lying about it for months. I was suspended for a long time and they didn’t tell me even once. She now has an ex-boyfriend. Her hair was sampled and it tested positive for Ligandrol. The International Canoe Federation’s anti-doping panel acquitted her but she still had to qualify for Tokyo.
Katie, with whom she would eventually win bronze, defeated her in the C1 200-meter race at the Trials, where Vincent Lapointe would fall while trying to overtake the canoe. Fortunately, in July, it was announced that she would partner Katie in the C2 500, an event where she set a world record and the two would eventually take a winning plunge in Tokyo. It also gave Canada its 23rd medal, a national record outside the boycotted ’84 Olympics.
“To this day, I’m pretty crazy.” She keeps a water bottle with her during training or with the coach and if she loses it for 30 seconds, she’s “not drinking again.” More trust issues have emerged. “I haven’t been in a relationship since then because how can I trust anyone?” When she stood on the podium after winning silver, “It hit me like a brick wall. I never cried on the podium. I’ve done it, I’ve done it. Two years. I don’t know what to say. I don’t.” Know how I did it.”
.