FIBA Suspended D.J. Cooper After Drug Test Reportedly Showed He Was Pregnant

One-time Ohio University standout D.J. Cooper was suspended from competition by the International Basketball Federation (better known as FIBA) back in 2018. According to a new report from Eurohoops,, Cooper’s two-year-long suspension came after a drug test administered by the governing body revealed that he was pregnant.

Cooper, who was looking to join the Bosnian national team that year, tested positive for human chorionic gonadotropin. That hormone is produced by the placenta in pregnant women. According to Eurohoops, the urine used to try and game the test came from Cooper’s pregnant girlfriend. The suspension means that Cooper is ineligible to play internationally until June of 2020.    

While Cooper using his pregnant girlfriend’s urine is an interesting way to get caught, it’s far from the strangest thing we’ve heard in the constantly shifting landscape of athletes dodging drug tests. Boxer Canelo Alvarez was eventually suspended for using performance-enhancing drugs. However, he fought off initial positive test results by claiming that he had ingested bad meat. 

“As part of the voluntary testing program that Canelo Alvarez insisted on ahead of his May 5 fight, one of his results came back positive for trace levels of clenbuterol, consistent with meat contamination that has impacted dozens of athletes in Mexico over the last years,” Alvarez’s promotional company said in a statement at the time. “As Daniel Eichner, director of [the Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory], the WADA-accredited lab that conducted the tests stated in his letter [on Monday], ‘These values are all within the range of what is expected from meat contamination.'”