Cycling Ireland and Sport Ireland have issued a statement saying Irish cyclist Dale Walker committed an anti doping violation at the Masters Road Race Championships in 2019 and has been banned for four years.
The ruling published today by Sport Ireland said: “The analytical report produced by Deutsche Sporthochschule Koln lnstitut fur Biochemie, dated 28 October 2019, indicated the presence of the following prohibited substances in Mr Walker's A Sample: epioxandrolone, oxandrolone, 18-noroxandrolone and boldenone and/or boldenone metabolite(s), each of which are listed as anabolic agents under S.1.1. of the WADA prohibited list.”
Mr Walker, who won the gold medal in the Masters 40 race
at the championships, denied he had taken anything illegal and asked for his B
sample to be tested.
“Mr Walker
further indicated that he had taken ‘various multi-vitamins, creatine,
protein, magnesium, L-Glutamine, zinc, L-Argenine, pre-workout and a number of other over the counter supplements
ordered online or from numerous health shops’
and offered to provide Sport Ireland with a sample of the daily products he takes,” the ruling
published today said.
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It further stated:
“Mr Walker explained that he had been taking
a number of supplements during the weeks of training
leading up to the race, some of which were obtained from the USA and were not available
within the EU market.
“The products
were described as “Tango' (a creatine supplement in powder form), 'Total War' (a pre-workout supplement in powder form) and 'Big
Noise' (a pump supplement to boost the pre-workout supplement in powder form).
“Mr Walker indicated that he had asked his brother to source ‘any receipts or confirmation of purchase’ and confirmed that he did not carry out any research
on these Redcon products ‘as they
were recommended to (him) by
(his) brother’.”
A report detailing the findings of testing Mr Walker organised on the products stated that “the anabolic steroid oxandrolone was detected in the 'Total War' product that this anabolic steroid was a ‘controlled substance in Ireland’ and that it is ‘not listed in the ingredients on the tub’.”
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Tests performed for Sport Ireland by a lab also confirmed the same result.
Mr Walker stated that while
the testing could not explain the substance boldenone in his urine, the person carrying out the testing “confirmed that it is a derivative of oxandrolene
and most certainly forms part of a single
steroid”.
However, Sport
Ireland’s evidence was that boldenone
and oxandrolene “have totally different chemical structures and one cannot be converted to the other”.
Sport Ireland
accepted “that the source of the positive test in respect of oxandrolene and of its two metabolites is a contaminated product as submitted by Mr
Walker”.
However, Sport Ireland said “no evidence” was provided
that would “explain the presence of boldenone
in Mr Walker's samples”.
Mr Walker said there was “no way I injected anything” and
said the one unexplained substance in his urine may have been due to food he
ate, though Sport Ireland said that was “speculative”.
Mr Walker added he had not looked into anti doping rules
and advice on supplements, saying he had been “pretty naïve” on the
matter and this had now cost him.
The ruling published by Sport Ireland said as Mr Walker could not explain the presence of boldenone in his urine, he had committed a doping violation.
And the sanction
for violations where there was no admission was a four-year suspension which
was backdate to November 4th, 2019, as that was when the provisional suspension
was applied.
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