Australian Olympian Peter Bol has declared the process that saw him improperly framed as a drug cheat was due to incompetence rather than racism.
The 29-year-old middle distance star was provisionally banned from his sport last October after an out-of-competition test was deemed to have returned a positive result for the banned synthetic EPO.
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EPO in its synthetic form has been banned as a performance-enhancing drug since the early 1990s, and was infamously used by Lance Armstrong as part of a sophisticated doping program through the late 1990s and early 2000s, during which he won seven consecutive Tour de France titles.
It is also naturally produced by the kidneys, but in its artificial form helps with performance and recovery by increasing red-blood-cell count.
Bol always maintained his innocence and has since been cleared of any wrongdoing – with results of independent testing being released this week and further confirming his innocence.
After Bol’s provisional doping ban was lifted by Athletics Australia in February, former Victorian of the Year Berhan Ahmed suggested that racism at the governing body could have been behind the bungled process.
In an interview with News Corp, Dr Ahmed was fuming that Bol’s original A sample result was leaked in the days leading up to the announcement of the Australian of the Year honours list, on which Bol was expected to be included.
“That’s significantly something that needs to be looked at separately,’’ Ahmed said in February.
“The whole thing was a shock without doubt because the man was preparing himself for that sort of role.
“So the Australia Day Council and the authorities must be interested in how that happened at that time… come out and give a fair go for him.’’
Dr Ahmed’s racism concerns led him to call for greater diversity in the leadership ranks at Athletics Australia, however Bol has now rejected suggestions racism played any part in the process.
“Do I think it was racist? I just think it was unfair. It was incompetence,” Bol told The Sydney Morning Herald.
“The way my name was thrown out there, you have to find out who leaked it – that will give you more answers. You can make a better judgment after you find that out.”
Bol, who arrived in Australia at the age of 10 after fleeing Sudan, also explained that a support worker from Athletics Australia had called him in the wake of Dr Ahmed’s comments to ask if he felt like he was being treated differently because of his race.
In a statement provided to News Corp, Athletics Australia said “any suggestion that there is any level of racism involved in this issue is completely baseless … noting of course that Sport Integrity Australia is the lead agency in charge of anti-doping testing and investigation.’’
The 800m star told the Herald he felt like he was being “framed” as news of his supposedly positive A-sample was leaked, to the point where he was too scared to even research his situation.
“I couldn’t Google to see what I was getting done for,” Bol said. “I was worried they were going to see what I was looking up.
“I went on Netflix and started watching the Lance Armstrong documentary and thought they might notice that. I couldn’t research anything because I felt like I was getting framed.”
Bol’s legal team, headed by Portland-based sports lawyer Paul Greene, is now attempting to have the Aussie athlete completely exonerated from all allegations.
Greene sent a letter to Sports Integrity Australia last week that claimed “inexperience and incompetence at the Australian Sports Drug Testing Laboratory (ASDTL) led to an incorrect determination” of Bol’s initial positive A-sample.
The letter from Bol’s legal team says: “Sport Integrity Australia has an affirmative duty to publicly acknowledge the catastrophic blunders that have been made in Mr Bol’s case and immediately exonerate him since the rules mandate that anti-doping authorities like Sport Integrity Australia be held to the same strict standards as athletes”.
The letter cited two reports that were critical of the findings made by Sport Integrity Australia, and laid out seven failures of process that resulted in Bol’s positive A-sample, calling it a “blunder of epic proportions”.
In an interview on Channel Nine’s Today on Wednesday morning, Bol was steadfast in his innocence.
“I feel really good, but at the same time it wasn’t something I was surprised about,” he said.
“It kind of vindicates everything we said all along.
“The fact is I don’t think this should have happened at all, to start with”
Asked about how it felt to have his name dragged through the mud after the positive A-sample was leaked, Bol described it was a “rollercoaster”.
“It was basically a rollercoaster, but I had so much support,” he said.
“It’s still supposedly an ongoing investigation, which I think is completely unfair.
“This month I’m supposed to have an interview with Sport Integrity (Australia) and I still haven’t heard yet and the month is about to be over.
“We’ve lost so much time, time on the track, time off the track, and having to explain something you knew nothing about, has been the most difficult part.
“I remember when I had to explain it to my family, and I was just kind of confused, and to see how upset they were, was just really unnecessary when that B Sample shouldn’t have been made public anyway.
“My coach didn’t sleep for a few days.
“I don’t think (my sister) went to school for the first week (after the news broke).
“It’s something she had nothing to do with, and she was struggling with it. I don’t think a single Australian track athlete has been done for EPO – to accuse me of that, and give me no proof, was just unfair.”
Greene was resolute in his desire for a public apology from Sport Integrity Australia, joining Bol in the interview.
“My primary goal right now is to get them to publicly admit what is obvious,” he said.
“If anyone looks at those reports, we have two of the most world-class analytical chemists in the world look at his results and say this wasn’t even a close call.
“These were just negative tests.
“These WADA labs are generalist, they don’t have the expertise to understand this particular test, the EPO gel test.
“It’s not a straightforward analysis, it isn’t like a normal exam or test or looking at a urine substance where it is clearly in there and it’s synthetic.
“This is a subjective analysis and they just couldn’t get it right.
“They had no idea what they were doing. And the worst part of it now is, one, it was announced first of all, which never should have been. I begged them not to announce it.
“Two, now they just obviously are wrong, they are refusing to drop this sham investigation. They have absolutely no evidence at all at this point as to any wrongdoing.
“People cannot be convicted under the World Anti-Doping Code system or any system on shadows or whispers, they have to have actual evidence, and there is none.
“They haven’t even responded to us at all, we asked them six weeks ago for dates for an interview.
“There’s absolutely no investigation going on, there’s nothing to investigate, and at this point they have a duty to come out and say ‘there’s nothing here.’
“They have the same strict liability standards as athletes do.”
“There’s no urine sample positive, there’s no evidence he took something in his urine, it’s 100% negative, there’s nothing on his phone, there’s nothing on his computer, there’s absolutely no evidence.
“They just need to say they messed this up, this was a mistake, we’re sorry.”
