Steroid warning for club athletes
The Sports Tribunal has urged clubs and sporting organisations to introduce ‘‘a greater degree of drug education at all levels of competitive sport’’ after an Auckland club cricketer was banned for two years for using a prohibited steroid.
Christopher Ware is suspended from all sport until 2019 after purchasing the banned substance clenbuterol for weight control.
Ware bought clenbuterol - an anabolic agent that builds muscle and burns fat - from an online website NZ Clenbuterol in 2014 and 2015, the Sports Tribunal tribunal reported on Friday.
It was the tribunal’s fourth case involving clenbuterol and it said in a statement that it expected many more similar cases arising from Medsafe’s investigation into an online steroid supplier called NZ Clenbuterol, which passed data to Drug Free Sport New Zealand (DFSNZ) relating to athletes who had purchased prohibited drugs online.
In a statement on the Ware decision, the tribunal said it appeared amateur athletes ‘‘may more readily establish that they do not have the intention to break anti-doping rules’’ and could ‘‘therefore be treated more favourably than professional athletes’’ because they did not get the same level of education around the antidoping drug regime as elite professional sportspeople.
The tribunal therefore urged clubs and national sports organisations to initiate, with DFSNZ, a greater degree of drug education at all levels.
‘‘There is a responsibility on all athletes to observe the rules,’’ the tribunal panel, Jim Farmer QC, Paula Tesoriero and Chantal Brunner, said in its decision.
‘‘It is also incumbent on the clubs and coaches to take the initiative and invoke the resources of DFSNZ to ensure that the drug education programme extends into all corners of competitive sport, whether professional or amateur.’’
Ware, now based in Britain, purchased the product because he thought it was a weight loss product as he had gained weight when unable to play cricket or attend the gym because of recurring injuries.
Ware had never played first class cricket, never been part of a high performance or drug edu- cation programme, nor been drug tested for sport.
He stated he did not seek to cheat or enhance his sport performance, and had never intentionally or otherwise taken a prohibited substance.
Ware was provisionally suspended without opposition on November 3.
He admitted the violations but asked to be heard on the sanction issue.
Under the sports antidoping rules, multiple violations are treated as a single violation and the sanction imposed is based on the violation that carries the most severe sanction.
For the 2015 violation - attempted use of an anabolic agent such as clenbuterol - the presumptive period of ineligibility is four years - reduced to two years if the athlete can show the violation was not intentional.
The tribunal accepted Ware’s violation was not intentional based on his evidence, reasons for wanting to purchase clenbuterol, and his lack of knowledge about the substance.
The presumptive two-year period of ineligibility applied.
Ware accepted responsibility for significant fault and did not seek a shorter sanction.
The tribunal was asked to backdate the ban to November 3, 2016 - the date of the provisional suspension order.
The tribunal said in its statement it agreed with the analysis of facts from earlier clenbuterol cases, ‘‘ namely the time which elapsed between the matter initially coming to the attention of DFSNZ in 2015 and the subsequent lengthy investigation process before proceedings were filed against Mr Ware in September 2017’’
It felt Ware was entitled to some allowance for these delays’’
Given ‘‘his timely admission’’, his two-year period of suspension was backdated January 1, 2017 - making him eligible to play sport again in 2019.
The tribunal said DFSNZ had indicated at the hearing that it was reviewing the initial bunch of decisions that had been given by the tribunal on the clenbuterol situation and by the New Zealand Rugby Union Judicial Committee and for that reason it had reserved its position in relation to Ware and would not be presenting its full submissions to the tribunal.
This was ‘‘not acceptable’’ to the tribunal, which instructed counsel for DFSNZ to present its full submissions, which he then did.
In a comment in the Ware decision, the tribunal set out the implications of a party on appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport expanding its evidence and arguments beyond that presented to the tribunal.
It expressed concern at the effect on its processes and on an athlete if presentation of a party’s real case is deferred until the appeal stage.