Fraser-Holmes: Quitting crossed my mind during ban

THOMAS Fraser-Holmes admits he has thought of quitting swimming since receiving a 12month ban for missing drug tests, but his love of the sport is too strong to turn his back on representing Australia.

Fraser-Homes last week officially appealed the ban handed down by swimming world governing body FINA in June after a panel found he had missed three drug tests by not updating his official “whereabouts”.

If it stands, the ban will force Fraser-Holmes to sit out next year’s Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, a situation the athlete said would be hard to take.

“The possibility of looking down a 12-month suspension has its challenges,” FraserHolmes said in a video released on athlete social media platform Viktre and tweeted to the swimmer’s 5000 followers.

Fraser-Holmes is not allowed to associate with any official squad or coach associated with Swimming Australia during his ban and was forced from accommodation housing members of the national team when his sanction was handed down. He now trains alone at a public pool.

“There have been moments where I’ve second guessed it … do I really want to put myself through this heartache and hours and hours or training by myself for the next 12 months,” Fraser-Holmes said.

“It’s definitely crossed my mind, it’s not been a constant thought but it’s drifted in and out of my thought processes at times and it always comes back to ‘why I do this?’.

“I think that the passion I have for the sport is far greater than anybody telling me I can’t train with a squad or train in a program with a coach.”

Fraser-Holmes’ lawyer Tim Fuller told the Bulletin FraserHolmes would appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport on the grounds the official Anti-Doping Administration and Management System (ADAMS) app was not working when he attempted to change his whereabouts from the Gold Coast to Canberra last year while he was in the capital to trial new coaches following his decision to leave Miami mentor Denis Cotterell following the Olympics.

And while Fraser-Holmes hopes that is successful, he admits he “stuffed up”.