The fastest man to ever run the famed Grouse Grind trail is now serving a two-year suspension for an anti-doping rule violation related to his day job as an elite cyclist.
On Jan. 20 the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport announced that Vancouver's Sebastian Salas received a two-year ban from sport because of a "tampering with doping control" violation that occurred during an in-competition test July 10, 2013.
Salas is famous on the North Shore for his incredible times on the Grind. He set the official record for the BMO Grouse Grind Mountain Run at a blistering 25 minutes and one second in 2010. That same year he also set the unofficial Grind record - for times recorded outside of the annual run - at 23:48, beating the previous record by more than 30 seconds.
The CCES release states that Salas "fully explored his rights under the Canadian Anti-Doping Program and eventually chose to admit the doping control violation, waive his right to a hearing, and accept a two-year sanction ending August 1, 2015."
When contacted by the North Shore News, Grouse Mountain public relations manager Jacqueline Blackwell said they were previously unaware of the violation but they would not be changing their records because Salas set his marks years before the violation occurred. "As we have so far not received information suggesting Mr. Salas' violations date back to 2010 or prior, the record set in our recreational race will stand as a formal Grouse Grind Mountain Run record," she said. "If further evidence comes to light we will certainly examine it."
