Australian middle distance runner Peter Bol’s celebrated career was brought to a standstill after he returned a positive drug test but uncertainty about the validity of testing has authorities running for cover amid calls for his ongoing investigation to be dropped.
Peter Bol Credit:Nine
Sport and drugs have become increasingly vexatious issues since big money came into play and the dishonour board of sportsmen and women who have used banned drugs is long and well-paid. Alumni include: Sun Yang, Ben Johnson, Marion Jones, Lance Armstrong, Diego Maradona and Shane Warne. Their glory was winning. Bol’s glory comes from striving.
In the bleak pandemic winter of 2020, with large parts of the country locked down or fearful, Bol’s inspired two laps in the Tokyo Olympics 800 metres final lifted Australian hearts. His fourth placing especially resonated in Sydney, where COVID-19 had exposed the challenges in building a truly inclusive society with the toughest lockdowns imposed on suburbs home to large migrant and non-English-speaking background communities. Bol’s heroic run crossed the divide and reminded many of the great hope offered by Australia.
Bol’s family fled war-torn Sudan when he was four years old and emigrated to Egypt. He arrived in Australia as a 10-year-old. A teacher at his school in Perth spotted his potential as a runner after watching him compete in a cross-country event at 16 and persuaded him to try more running: He ran 41st in the 800 metres at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, competed in three IAAF Athletics World Championships, ran fourth at Tokyo and won silver at last year’s Birmingham Commonwealth Games.
Then on January 10, the reigning Australian champion and record-holder’s world was shattered. He was provisionally suspended after an A-sample drug test taken out-of-season last October indicated high levels of the banned substance Erythropoietin – better known as EPO. It is a naturally occurring hormone produced by the kidneys but, in synthetic form, can enhance performance and speed recovery by increasing an athlete’s red-blood-cell count.
News of Bol’s positive A-sample test – which might not have been positive at all – was leaked to the media and later confirmed in an Athletics Australia statement just days before he was expected to be named Young Australian of the Year. Bol was allowed to return to the track a month later after the B-sample tested by the World Anti-Doping Authority (WADA) returned an atypical result, which means it was neither negative nor positive.
Bol reportedly spent $50,000 on legal costs in an effort to clear his name. But the federal government-funded agencies charged with keeping sport clean, the Australian Sports Drug Testing Laboratory (ASDTL) and Sports Integrity Australia (SIA), have kept schtum.
Bol’s team went around them and overseas to re-evaluate the A-sample test. The result was that scientists at two independent and respected laboratories have cleared Bol of using EPO, a development his US-based lawyer Paul Greene described as a “catastrophic blunder” from Sports Integrity Australia. Further, his legal team blamed “inexperience and incompetence at the Australian Sports Drug Testing Laboratory led to an incorrect determination” of his positive A-sample.
Meanwhile, Bol sits on the sidelines wearing the odour of being a drug cheat and will miss next week’s Australian Track and Field Championships. Serious doubts have been raised about the validity of the tests. In addition, there is the serious matter of who leaked the results to the media. These are issues that should rightly concern Athletics Australia, SIA and ASDTL as they receive public funds to administer sport fairly and properly. In the interest of fair play, the SIA must drop its ongoing investigation and apologise to Bol if its testing regime is found deficient.
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