Anti doping inquiry as GAA urine samples missing
An anti doping inquiry into how GAA urine samples went missing twice has begun. Sport Ireland anti-doping officials have launched the inquiry.
The samples disappeared while in the care of a courier company. It was hired by Sport Ireland to take samples to a WADA laboratory in Germany.
The Irish Independent has reported on the story. Its journalist Brian Carroll also documents other unfortunate anti doping incidents.
Sport Ireland testers went to locations where teams said they would be training. But they found nobody there.
There were seven failed attempts of that nature between June 2016 and May 2017. They involved attempts to test players from Carlow, Offaly, Antrim, Westmeath and Kilkenny.
Sport Ireland has informed the GAA of its inquiry into the samples going missing in the other cases.
In May of this year samples given by three Westmeath footballers were lost. They were in transit while in the care of the courier company.
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The disappearance was discovered when the samples failed to arrive at the WADA-approve lab in Cologne.
In July of last year samples taken from three Fermanagh footballers were also lost. They went missing in transit on the way to the German lab.
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Sport Ireland told journalist Brian Carroll that it used the courier company about 1,500 times per year. And the loss of samples was “extremely rare”.
The other strand of the Irish Independent story relates to the failed attempts to test players.
Two failed attempts were made to collect samples from Westmeath GAA players earlier this year.
In April the hurling squad was absent when the testers went to a designated location to take samples from players.
And the same scenario occurred with the Westmeath footballers in May.
GAA agreed to pay Westmeath's fines
Westmeath GAA was fined €520 and €611 for the two incidents, with the GAA agreeing to pay the fines.
Westmeath GAA said training venues had been changed at the last minute and that a “miscommunication” had arisen.
In June of last year anti doping officials were unable to test Carlow’s football squad.
Carlow GAA said there was a late change of training venue due to poor weather. And this was to blame for the two missed test incidents.
The newspaper report did not outline the remaining three missed test attempts.
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