GAA drug tests all come back negative

ANTI-DOPING PROCEDURES:THE GAA can consider itself a "drug free" sport after the results of anti-doping procedures for the past year have all come back negative.

A total of 75 random tests were carried out over the course of the league and championship – a third of those being “out-of-competition” – and there are no instances of adverse analytical findings, as they say in the business.

It’s welcome news for the GAA on several fronts. Assuming the testing does work, it indicates illegal doping practices remain largely alien to Gaelic games; it also suggests testing acts as a suitable deterrent for anyone who may be tempted into such practices; and it confirms the problem last year with Kerry footballer Aidan O’Mahony – who failed to properly register his therapeutic use of the asthma medication salbutamol – was indeed an isolated incident.

In a significant related development, the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) has also approved its new list of prohibited substances and methods for 2010, which the GAA, like most other sports, now adhere to. The most notable change is in fact related to salbutamol, as from January 1st next year, it will no longer require a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE), but rather a simplified declaration of use.

The substance remains prohibited if its concentration is found to be above 1,000 nanograms per millilitre of urine (ng/mL), but will be permitted below this threshold without a TUE. According to Wada, “this measure will allow the handling of salbutamol by anti-doping organisations in a more cost-efficient way”.

In other words, salbutamol remains banned at and above the level deemed to offer performance-enhancing effects, as in anabolic gains, but the player or athlete, if using it for medical purposes as required, only needs to declare their use at the time of testing, rather than in advance. This decision will be keenly noted not just by the GAA but many other sports such as rugby, athletics and cycling – where the use of salbutamol, legal or otherwise, has been a lot more problematic.

The GAA’s operations manager, Feargal McGill, who in his role in player welfare also has responsibility for anti-doping issues, welcomed the Wada decision on salbutamol but more importantly stressed the latest findings regarding the GAA’s enviable position as a “drug free” sport.

“This is an administrative change, really,” he said. “The therapeutic use exemption was a more complicated thing to get. Now, the player only has to declare salbutamol use, when he’s actually tested. So they’ve really just simplified the thing, and anything that makes anti-doping procedures that bit easier has to be welcomed.

“The situation with Aidan O’Mahony last year really brought our attention to the issue of salbutamol. Our anti-doping programme is still relatively new, and we are still learning all the time, but certainly something like salbutamol is a fairly common substance that’s used in the proper treatment of asthma.”

O’Mahony tested positive for illegally high levels of salbutamol after last year’s All-Ireland football final defeat to Tyrone, and although exonerated from any charges of doping, he was reprimanded for an error in the completion of his application for a TUE to allow him take medication for asthma. Although the levels were considerably higher (1977 ng/mL) than the 1000 ng/mL permitted, it also was accepted the result was the consequence of the therapeutic use of inhaling the drug, and not an attempt to gain unfair advantage.

Another change to the Wada code for 2010 may not be so welcome; pseudoephedrine, an ingredient in many common decongestant medications, has been put back on the banned list, having been removed in 2004. Since then it has been included in the Wada’s monitoring program to detect patterns of misuse, and after the program detected clear abuse of the substance it’s now being prohibited again as of next year.

McGill issued more of a warning than a welcome to this decision: “As always, when it comes to any anti-doping issue, our advice to players is to declare everything that they take or are using to their team doctor. If they do that, stick by that simple rule, the chances are they have nothing to worry about. Obviously that applies to all sports.”

Of the 75 anti-doping tests carried out on intercounty players during 2009 (roughly the same amount as 2008), 27 of them – or roughly one-third – were out-of-competition, as in at designated training venues. However, the GAA is not subject to the stricter testing criteria of other sports, where athletes can be tested any time, or any place. But for now the GAA have no plans to apply that stricter measure.

“As things stand the only two places you can be tested as an intercounty player are after a match, or at a training session,” said McGill. “We are a completely amateur organisation, and the Irish Sports Council are happy with this approach. That’s what we’ve agreed. It’s still completely random, and again, over the past decade, the testing has shown up nothing that we should be particular concerned about.

“As for the 2009 testing, we’re delighted to report there’s been no problem with any of those tests. They’ve all come back clear. Looking back over the past decade, there’s been one positive test in Gaelic games, and there were obviously mitigating circumstances there, and it certainly wasn’t any attempt at cheating or performance enhancing . . . So that’s something we’re extremely proud of, and I think it’s wonderful the GAA is able to say that despite the fairly rigorous testing, we remain a clean sport. No too many sports can say that.”