“I would suggest that even those who are living under a rock in west Kerry are aware of the dangers of taking supplements.”
The supplement that saw Brendan O’Sullivan test positive in a drug test is now known but the debate rumbles on.
Supplement that saw Kerry footballer test positive for drug test has been revealed | SportsJOE.ie https://t.co/7sKRbqEytz
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) June 1, 2017
He’s an exemplary guy, the public are told. Most accept that it was a genuine mistake. But others say it was stupid.
Speaking with Colm Parkinson on The GAA Hour, Ewan MacKenna explained how even an amateur GAA player would’ve been well-warned on performance-enhancing pitfalls.
“Every time you hear an excuse for a failed doping test, it’s either a contaminated supplement or it’s Butamol via an inhaler – it’s very predictable at this stage,” MacKenna said in a fascinating interview on the football show.
“Now, he may well be telling the truth but he should know the risks that are there and God knows that Kerry have a professional setup around them in terms of nutritionists and doctors who will keep them on the straight and narrow.
“There’s a myth out there that it’s actually quite easy to fail a doping test. It’s not. It’s quite difficult to fail a doping test and you have to be pretty stupid, to be frank, to fail a doping test.
“You’re surrounded by doctors who, I guarantee you, will have warned the Kerry panel not to veer off into health shops or buy stuff off the internet. There’s a nutritionist with the Kerry panel who will tell them identically the same thing. There’s an Irish Sports Council app that you can type in what the product is and it can give you a warning.”
But MacKenna has questioned the roles of others in this saga – not just O’Sullivan.
“I think Brendan O’Sullivan has been slightly landed in a grey area of the making of other people around him who are getting off scot-free from this – Éamonn Fitzmaurice, the Kerry county board, Marc Ó Sé said he had absolutely no knowledge that Brendan O’Sullivan took anything. He was in the dressing room with him all last year from the league final onwards,” he said.
“None of this adds up. Kerry can yerra their way out of football because they know it better than anyone but I don’t think they know doping very well from their actions here.
“A few questions I would have: why did Éamonn Fitzmaurice not tell his panel that there was a contaminated supplement if there was a contaminated supplement, so they didn’t walk into the same trap? Why didn’t the Kerry county board tell every club footballer in the county in case they fell into the same trap? Why didn’t the GAA tell every other county footballer in case they fell into the same trap? And why didn’t Sport Ireland, via the anti-doping authorities, tell every other sportsperson in case they fell into the same trap?”
And the reaction to this case has frustrated many journalists.
“If they just named the supplement here, it would be very, very easy because anyone who studies and is into doping – with WiFi for five minutes and Google – could tell you if this was true or not,” MacKenna claimed.
“I question Anti-Doping Ireland, how a guy can serve a suspension and a year later we find his name. If it was a pending case, how could the suspension have been served and administered? A pending case suggests that they’re still investigating it and all the facts aren’t known.
“But bigger than this, we don’t know if we have this culture in the GAA.
“I think to assign guilt to Brendan O’Sullivan is wrong, but I think to assign innocence without the facts is completely wrong and naive.
“Overall for the GAA to say that’s not our culture, I think it’s bullshit.”
Listen to his full interview from the start of The GAA Hour below or subscribe here on iTunes.
