GAA teams top missed tests list

GAA TEAMS top the list of missed drugs tests carried out by the Irish Sports Council’s anti-doping programme in 2011, and could yet face some period of suspension that applies to athletes caught in similar circumstances.

There were 17 such missed tests last year, across five sports, where teams were not training at the location stated on the anti-doping whereabouts form: almost half of those were GAA teams (8), the others being rugby (4), hockey (3) plus football (1) and basketball (1).

When an athlete accumulates three whereabouts failures with an 18-month period – the “three strikes and you’re out” rule – they face a two-year ban. The GAA have agreed special dispensation with the Irish Sports Council whereby if a team is not found at the specified location, the GAA effectively locates it, and pays whatever cost is required to ensure the test is still carried out.

“These figures are a bit disappointing,” says Dr Una May, the Sports Council’s director of anti-doping, “but we’ve always acknowledged the fact the GAA has more difficulties there than other sports because of the way their facilities are, and they tend to move their venues and fixtures around.

“But the GAA have taken it on board as an issue, and what they’ve agreed is if we go looking for a county and they’re not there, then they will find them, and foot the bill for that attempt, and pass it on the county board. So that is a strong message of support from the GAA to try to improve this.”

According to Fergal McGill, the GAA’s head of games administration and player welfare, there is the threat teams could be kicked out of the championship if they accumulated three missed tests: “We certainly don’t like to see our name so high up on that list, and it’s something we do take very seriously. At the same time these whereabouts rule are very new to the GAA, and teams need to face that reality, but I think teams are a lot more informed than say 12 months ago. But if county boards are being asked for €600 or €700 to cover the cost of locating a team for a missed test then they realise soon enough the importance of the whereabouts rule.”

There is still some anomaly in that the Sports Council are unlikely to apply a blanket ban on a team, even if they did miss three tests: “We’ve never had one team miss three tests,” says Dr May. “Because what happens is if they miss one then we contact the GAA to get better information. But if they’re not giving us the right information that’s the risk they take too. It is a little different with team sports, because we’re not looking for a specific individual, and the system doesn’t accommodate a blanket ban for a team. We’d have to be looking for individual athletes, individual players, in order for that to really work. And that’s not what we’re tending to do here. What happens is a fine, or some other sanction, and that’s something the World Anti-Doping Agency is looking into, and how to cope with team testing.”

The Irish Sports Council carried out 1,055 tests in 2011, across 37 sports, with athletics the most tested sport on the programme (118 tests), followed by cycling (115), GAA (93), rugby (84) and boxing (63). There were five positive tests of rule violations: Gary Sweeney (boxing), Martin Fagan (athletics), Oleg Jukovics (weightlifting), Thomas Lawlor (motorcycling) and Michael Carroll (rugby).