It is a rare week when drugs in sport are not in the headlines, with Team Sky’s grilling by British MPs the current case in point.
Ireland has had its fair share of doping stories – from Michelle Smith’s tarnished Olympic record to marathon runner Martin Fagan’s two-year ban for taking EPO.
However, to this point, the GAA has remained relatively unblemished – Monaghan footballer Thomas Connolly last year receiving a two-year ban after testing positive for an anabolic steroid.
From the beginning of this year members of the Association have been included in Sport Ireland’s anti-doping programme, meaning GAA players can now be subject to blood testing.
However the scale of the testing operation within the GAA is still surprisingly small, with just 453 tests carried out between 2011 and 2015, according to figures obtained by the ‘Limerick Voice’.
That is less than 100 drug tests per year, with more than half (237) being carried out out of competition (before or after training).
While this number seems low, it is 10 times larger than the number of tests carried out in ladies football and camogie. In the same period just 42 tests were carried out in the two women’s codes.
