Calalang and Johnson Clear Hurdle, Ready to Live the Dream

When the news broke last month that Jessica Calalang had tested positive for a stimulant in a sample from the 2021 Toyota U.S. Figure Skating Championships, she and partner Brian Johnson's withdrawal from the successive World Championships suddenly made sense. The journey from learning about the infraction until Calalang was cleared of any wrongdoing was an emotional roller coaster ride for the two-time U.S. silver medalists.
 
"On February 12, I received an email from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency telling me that the urine sample that I provided at the U.S. Championships was positive for 4-cholorophenoxyacetic acid (4-CPA)," Calalang said. "It's a metabolite of the prohibitive substance meclofenoxate."
 
Though she knew that it was not good news, Calalang was not sure what to make of the 24-page email. She was informed of the chain of custody of her sample and was given the option of having the B sample tested to confirm the presence of the substance. As she further examined the email, Calalang began to understand how serious this issue was with regards to her athletic career.
 
"In that moment everything was taken away from me," she recalled. "There was no funding for my training, I couldn't compete or act as a coach in competition, and I couldn't attend any camps or benefit from having U.S. Figure Skating judges and officials look at us."
 
Later that day Calalang received a call from Kacey Wallace, an athlete ombudsman with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, who recommended that Calalang retain a lawyer.
 
"At that point, I shared the news with Brian and our coaches Jenni (Meno) and Todd (Sand)," she said. "I still didn't have any idea on how to navigate this, but I knew that I didn't do anything wrong. I thought that we would be fine, and it would be over in a couple of weeks, and we would still be able to compete at the World Championships. That was not the case."
 
Johnson's immediate reaction was that it was a mistake.
 
"Jess is so religious with what she puts into her body," he said. "She's not that kind of person who would do this and jeopardize anything. I really didn't believe it. I thought that they sent the email to the wrong person."
 
Over the next couple of weeks, with guidance from her lawyer, Calalang scoured her home for anything that might have caused her to fail the drug test and began sending whatever she could out for testing.
 
"I was running around trying to find some of the things that we thought it could have been such as a collagen powder that I had been using," she explained. "I still had some left, so I was able to locate the lot number. Then, I had to find my receipt to prove where and when I bought it. I went back to the store where I bought it to see if they still had any with that lot number, and fortunately they did, so I bought more so that I could send an unopened bin for testing."
 
In addition to the collagen powder, Calalang also sent out soap and other cosmetics to be tested, but everything came back negative. As she continued her search for what might have caused the positive test, she and Johnson learned that the substance typically stays in the system for just a few days.
 
"One benefit to nationals (U.S. Championships) being a bubble that year was that once you entered the bubble, you had to stay in the bubble," Johnson explained. "We knew that it had to be something that she brought to the competition because we couldn't leave the bubble to go to the drugstore. This helped us to focus the search."
 
After the initial shock wore off, reality began to set in for the duo, and it quickly became evident that the opportunity to compete in the World Championships in Stockholm, Sweden, was beginning to slip away.
 
"The first two weeks it was still in our vision, but then as it started getting closer and we were not hearing anything that would indicate that this would be over anytime soon, we started to lose hope," Calalang said. "It was getting more difficult to train and stay positive."
 
The stress of trying to find a source of the substance entering her system combined with disappointment and guilt began to wear down the typically upbeat Calalang. During this time, it was not uncommon to see her break down in tears during training. She estimates that she cried every day for 100 days straight.
 
"Everybody at the rink could see that she was miserable, but they didn't know what was going on," Johnson shared. "They would ask us once if we were okay and we would tell them yes. They understood that it was a private matter and that we would tell them when we were ready."
 
When the time came to withdraw from the World Championships, Calalang knew that she had to reach out to her training mate and friend, 2021 U.S. pairs champion Alexa Knierim.
 
"The first thing that she asked was if I was safe," Calalang said. "I started crying because that is one of the sweetest things that someone could ever say to me in this moment. I told her that I was and that I'd share more the next day. We had a meeting with Alexa, Brandon (Frazier) and Chris (Knierim) and told them why we were withdrawing, and Alexa immediately began shaking her head no—that it wasn't possible."
 
As the saga wore on, Calalang began to lose hope and her emotional state began to deteriorate.
 
"I stopped kind of caring—I think maybe I brushed my hair to come into the rink, which was all I could do at that point," she said through tears. "I would do my best to try and make myself feel like it was going to be a normal day. but that really wasn't the case. Looking back, I don't know how we came in every day, but there was not a day that I called out in the morning and was like no I'm not feeling it."
 
It was not always easy, Calalang admits, and there were times when everything was just too much for her to handle.
 
"I do want to emphasize the grief, the pain and depression that I experienced.  There would be times where I would skate for 30 minutes, and I would have to call it," she shared. "Having my character as an athlete being put into question and how all the hard work I had done seemed to have meant nothing within the blink of an eye, even though I felt that I was doing everything right as an athlete. That was something that I had a hard time accepting, or I guess I never really accepted it."
 
But then there was a glimmer of hope—in May Rob Font, an Ultimate Fighting Championships competitor, tested positive for the same substance that provoked Calalang's suspension. By July, it was announced that he was cleared of any wrongdoing by USADA, after it was determined that sunscreen was the source of the 4-CPA. Due to on-going research it was discovered that a cosmetic preservative called chlorphenesin, which is not a banned substance, also metabolizes into 4-CPA.
 
As her arbitration date with USADA approached, Calalang's lawyer shared that there were some draft regulations specific to 4-CPA were going up for vote in September, and if passed, she, too, would be cleared of the violation.
 
"He recommended that I not go to arbitration and stay in my case until after the decision was made," Calalang said. "In the meantime, I had my provisional suspension lifted and I would be able to compete, get funding, and participate in camps again. While my provisional suspension was lifted, we still felt something hanging over our heads. It was like this dark cloud kept following us, we were not in the clear yet, but knew things were heading in the direction that we had hoped for."
 
At the end of September Calalang received word that USADA and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) had cleared her of any wrongdoing, attributing her positive test to cosmetic products that included the chlorphenesin. At that point Calalang was fully reinstated, including her funding restored.
 
"It's a huge relief," Calalang said. "We can exhale now. It's just nice to be able to talk about it and have people understand what we went through."
 
Calalang acknowledges the role that her support system played in getting her through one of the biggest challenges in her life.
 
"My parents and family provided me with emotional support the whole time," she shared. "They did a lot of the groundwork for me when I couldn't function. I have family in the biochemical industry that helped me for connections to do specific research in my case."
 
She continued, "The support that I received from Jenni and Todd, from Alexa, Chris and Brandon helped me get through this. Brian was amazing. He stood by me every step of the way and never doubted my innocence."

Calalang and Johnson had a strong showing to kick off their season, placing fifth at 2021 Guaranteed Rate Skate America. They went on to earn the silver medal at Warsaw Cup in Poland and are slated to compete at the Golden Spin of Zagreb in December.