Doping in NZ...
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80 athletes suspected in doping probe
An investigation into illegal steroids has uncovered alleged widespread cheating in New Zealand sport, with up to 80 athletes allegedly caught up in a dopi
An investigation into illegal steroids has uncovered alleged widespread cheating in New Zealand sport, with up to 80 athletes allegedly caught up in a doping investigation.
The scope and results of the investigation are unprecedented and have the ability to tarnish the country's reputation as a "clean" sporting nation.
The athletes came the attention of investigators after their details were allegedly found in the database of a Christchurch man convicted and jailed for selling steriods via the internet.
They now face possible sanctions if found guilty of anti-doping rule violations. The Wada Code, which was updated on January 1, 2015, to allow for harsher penalties, offers a wide range of sanctions, which can be backdated.
As this offending captures the period between late 2014 and early 2015, so those who allegedly purchased in 2014 might be subject to lighter penalties than those in 2015. But, if found guilty of sporting violations, they won't face any criminal charges.
"It is a massive wake-up call," said New Zealand Sport CEO Peter Miskimmin.
The cases feature a range of sports, but it is understood that rugby players make up a significant portion – more than 40 per cent – of who now face potential sanctions.
No All Blacks or Olympians are among those caught in the sting, but it is understood some school-age athletes are.
The Weekend Herald can reveal the first case was heard this week and a decision could come as soon as next week. Because there is such a vast number of cases to be heard, the backlog is not expected to be cleared for at least six months.
To illustrate the scale of the investigation, in the last financial year Drug Free Sport New Zealand put eight cases before tribunals, some years they are as low as four. This sweep could net more than 80.
The cases come at an critical juncture in the fight against performance-enhancing drugs. Russia has been barred from next year's Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang – though clean athletes may compete as individuals – and national anti-doping organisations have been encouraged to take a hard line, partly to avoid any accusations of double standards.
It is in this context that the New Zealand Sports Tribunal and Rugby Judiciary will hear cases involving a large number of athletes who were recreational rather than serious sportsmen and women.
"Where we see evidence of a potential anti-doping rule violation (ADRV), we have an obligation to investigate it," said Nick Paterson, the chief executive of Drug Free Sport NZ. "We have to rigorously investigate cases and where we find evidence of an ADRV, we have to put that in front of the appropriate decision-making body."
DFSNZ has worked with athletes of all levels, but most often at the elite and just-blow-elite level. An investigation like this breaks new ground.
"A significant proportion of these cases may have had no anti-doping education from us," Paterson said.
The initial medicines investigation was initiated by medical regulatory body Medsafe.
It resulted in the arrest and imprisonment of Joshua Francis Townshend this year after he admitted to 129 charges under the Medicines Act. He was sentenced to two years at the Christchurch District Court.
Townshend was mixing, packaging and selling clenbuterol and other anabolic steroids from his Christchurch home, mainly through the website clenbuterol.co.nz. The site was shut down but not before information on his client database was made available to DFSNZ.
An initial sweep of the data netted representative cricketer Adam King and Hawkes Bay club rugby player Adam Jowsey. The cases were heard before the Sports Tribunal and Rugby Judiciary respectively and in both cases two-year bans were handed down.
A second sweep, however, uncovered dozens more alleged offenders, with more than 100 clients registered with national sporting organisations.
"We found a large number," Paterson said. "We have people across a good range of sports. We have levels of athlete from school and club level and upwards from there. We have male and female."
When pressed on whether any of those caught were professional or semi-professional sportsmen or women, Paterson said he could not talk about specific cases.
He did say, however, that beyond the rules violation, there was a "holistic" argument for taking the cases.
The products sold by Townshend, it was noted by Medsafe, fell well short of pharmaceutical standards.
"These people who purchased from the website literally had no idea what they were putting into their bodies," Paterson said. "For all we know the ingredients were mixed in a bathtub. If that's not a health risk, or a potential health risk, I don't know what is. How can you think that's okay?"
Miskimmin said the case showed New Zealand could not be complacent.
"What this demonstrates is we have people in our sport system and community who are prepared to take shortcuts, and that is not good," he said. "This exposes it and it highlights it."
On the flipside, Miskimmin noted, the raft of cases was evidence that if you cheat, you will be identified. The inter-agency approach to investigating anti-doping violations meant you did not have to return a positive test to face potential sanctions.
"It's very good that we can expose these things."
In a statement on the ministry website, Medsafe said Townshend was blatant in his advertising and promotion of the medicines and estimated that over one year he supplied the equivalent of 2100 10ml bottles of clenbuterol and approximately 2400 units of other anabolic steroids for injection.
Clenbuterol can be taken as a spray or injected intravenously. It is used to reduce body fat and increase muscle mass. It is used as both a performance enhancer and a vanity drug.
While many of those who appear before the tribunals may argue that they were just trying to look "cut", the rules make no allowance for that.
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It annoys me when our reputation is allegedly tarnished by catching cheats.
Presumably Russia, which never catches any of its cheats, isn't tarnished by that logic.
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Four players have been banned by the New Zealand Rugby following anti-doping hearings. Zoey Berry, Rhys Pedersen, Glen Robertson and Ben Qauqau-Dodds have all been handed bans. Berry played one test for the Black Ferns in 2012 in a tour of England. Robertson was a member of the New Zealand under-20 squad in 2010. Qauqau-Dodds and Pedersen played club rugby in Dunedin and Manawatu respectively. Berry, Pedersen, and Robertson have been banned from playing rugby for the possession and, in some cases, use or attempted use of Clenbuterol and Qauqau-Dodds has been banned for the possession and use or attempted use of Metandienone. Clenbuterol and Metandienone are both prohibited substances under the NZ Sports Anti-Doping Rules. All athletes pleaded guilty to at least one of the offences alleged. The New Zealand Rugby Judicial Committee has ordered the suspension of Berry for four years commencing on 31 July 2017, Pedersen for 21 months from 1 January 2017, Robertson for four years from 3 February 2017 and Qauqau-Dodds for two years commencing on 31 July 2017. All four athletes were playing club rugby at the time of the offending. They are the first rugby cases heard following the revelation in the Weekend Herald that more than 100 athletes registered with national sporting organisations had been caught illegally purchasing steroids from the website clenbuterol.co.nz.
Four rugby players suspended for doping offences
Four players have been banned by New Zealand Rugby following anti-doping hearings. Zoey Berry, Rhys Pedersen, Glen Robertson and Ben Qauqau-Dodds have all
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@stargazer How stupid to you have to be to buy online from a site named clenbuterol.co.nz?
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@catogrande said in Doping in NZ...:
@stargazer How stupid to you have to be to buy online from a site named clenbuterol.co.nz?
Awesome marketing for that Website though
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Resurrecting this topic for general discussion on PEDs and general doping in sport as I saw this "article" in the Herald and thought it deserved a comment.
It's not exactly PEDs and I read it as I wondered who the "star" was.
It was headlined to seem like there is a major painkiller problem in rugby, but it's pretty obvious that it is nothing more than an advert.
Find this sort of advertising distasteful.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=12299659
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@booboo said in Doping in NZ...:
It was headlined to seem like there is a major painkiller problem in rugby, but it's pretty obvious that it is nothing more than an advert.
Find this sort of advertising distasteful.I saw that too and it is complete bollocks. I wonder if he actually paid to have that "article" written / published?
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Saw this paper today, which I thought was pretty interesting.
Using liposomes (lipid bilayer particles) to encapsulate haemoglobin for continuous release. Would increase haemoglobin availability (for oxygen carrying), while potentially not exceeding doping thresholds.
Haemoglobin delivered by liposome vesicles (liposome‐encapsulated haemoglobins, LEHs), first proposed as blood substitutes nearly 30 years ago,13 are a particular subclass of artificial oxygen carriers currently in preclinical development and represent a potential breakthrough in the field of blood substitutes.14-16 The long circulating liposome‐based drug delivery system, thanks to the presence of poly(ethylene glycol) derivatized phospholipids, allows for a prolonged delivery of oxygen to the tissues and reduced immunogenicity.17-19
Apart from their multiple clinical applications and promising therapeutic utility, LEHs, as well as other HBOCs, could in principle also be misused in sport doping practice, with the specific aim to increase the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood.20, 21 As such, they fall into category ‘M1 – Manipulation of Blood and Blood Components’ of the WADA list of prohibited substances and methods, which covers not only blood transfusions, but also, specifically, HBOCs, in Subsection 2: ‘Artificially enhancing the uptake, transport or delivery of oxygen. Including, but not limited to perfluorochemicals; efaproxiral (RSR13) and modified haemoglobin products, e.g. haemoglobin‐based blood substitutes and microencapsulated haemoglobin products, excluding supplemental oxygen’.9
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@Tim the science will just keep pushing on. I watch a fair bit of weightlifting and powerlifting content and people are def trying new stuff in that arena. At least they have options for clean v not unlike athletics etc. But Olympic weightlifting is def battling hard out doping, kind of like cycling where it's a matter of when, rather than if, people will get found out.
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@Paekakboyz said in Doping in NZ...:
@Tim the science will just keep pushing on. I watch a fair bit of weightlifting and powerlifting content and people are def trying new stuff in that arena. At least they have options for clean v not unlike athletics etc. But Olympic weightlifting is def battling hard out doping, kind of like cycling where it's a matter of when, rather than if, people will get found out.
The dopers are one step ahead
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@canefan or more aye! Although it is interesting that some of the never methods are seemingly less damaging or risky, at least in the weightlifting scene. Aside from putting an unhealthy level of muscle mass on your frame of course!
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