Former GAA player turned top paracyclist, Mark Rohan says nobody wants to know about doping in GAA. But he believes Irish paracyclists would also be tempted to dope.
A winner of two gold medals on the road at the London 2012 Paralympics, cyclist Mark Rohan has told independent.ie he is certain GAA has a doping problem.
But he also believed there was doping in Paralympic sport, saying the €40,000 in annual grants for paracyclists in the top three in Ireland created an “enormous incentive”.
His comments come just 24 hours after The Sunday Times reported a GAA player from Monaghan had tested positive for performance enhancing drugs.
Rohan, who played for the Westmeath minor football team before being paralysed in a road traffic collision in 2001, believed GAA players would feel as tempted as any other athlete to take drugs.
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He said his suspicions were peaked when he saw teams dominating games for long periods. And having watched some GAA players up close he says some are on “a different planet completely”.
“I strongly believe there are dopers in the GAA,” he told journalist Michael Verney on independent.ie.
Mark Rohan has become money in the bank at major championships and when London 2012 came around he was Ireland's poster boy; bagging two gold medals (Photo courtesy Cycling Ireland)
“Once you involve money in sport it f*** everything up. The GAA is no different to any professional sport and is not exempt from cheats.”
He believed big companies investing significant sums of sponsorship money into county teams put added pressure on players.
“It just takes one high profile guy to get injured and say ‘okay I need to get something back over the winter, I need to build up something here’.”
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He believed there was “something up” when teams could be seen dominating the opposition though said the public did not want to know about doping in GAA.
“When you see (some players) up close, they’re on a different planet completely. There is doping in the GAA and that's for sure.”
Rohan is one of only a handful of Irish cyclists whose names have gone mainstream; the Westmeath man securing a number of sponsorship deals, including one with Sky Sports (Photo courtesy Cycling Ireland)
Rohan is currently based at altitude in the US and he pointed out the effects of the training he was doing mimicked the effects of EPO.
He conceded many would see his training, facilitated by Irish Sports Council grants because he has been so successful, as giving him an unfair advantage over handcyclists from poorer nations.
"People wouldn’t think it but there are dopers in Paralympic sport,” he said.
He pointed out that €40,000 in annual funding was on offer to those in the top three in paracycling in Ireland, saying the incentive to reach that level was “enormous”.
Michael Verney's story on independent.ie in full:
"There is doping in the GAA and that's for sure," says double Paralympic gold medallist
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