GAA player test positive in drugs test.

[tyssam5]

Remember reading a lot of stuff 3-4 years ago when this first became an issue, a lot of confusing things for players, like Lemsip bought in the North being OK, but having a slightly different constitution if bought in the South making it illegal. It's a complicated issue, it would be up to each county board and their doctors to make sure the players are well informed. It would be very unfortunate to see someone getting into trouble over an asthma related drug, many great players and some gods have overcome this issue to perform at the highest level.

[Norf Tyrone]

In the Eng Premiership the team doctor has to veto everything that a player takes even from the most basic cough medicine. Does the team doctors in GAA not perform the same task?

[Puckoon]

Tyrone brought all the players in before the 2003 championship season to the Dr's office and each one was given a list of what they could and couldnt take. They were told that if there was any confusion to contact the team Dr before taking what would appear to be even the most basic of medical remedies.

[Reillers]

It's happened with rugby a few times. It's in an enhaler.
It's a banned substance but they shouldn't be banned. The drug itself, it's not even near an enhancer, it makes you sleepy and tired and it's pretty much the opposite to preformance enhancing.
A few rugby players, Frankie Sheahan being one, got tested positive for it, but after the other players kicked up a fuss, O Gara, Stringer, Wallace, O Connell, all have asthma, and all fought his corner like crazy, they all did, becuase it was ridiculous and his suspension was reduced.
He tested positive for the same drug, Salbutamol. He first got a ban of 2 years but it was reduced way down to 3 months.

It's ridiculous. It doens't enhance the preformance of a player, it does the opposite, they've a right to breath. Some stupid rule shouldn't stop that. To put a barrier up between asthma sufferes and other athletes.

[AZOffaly]

I'm assuming there's an active ingredient in it, which is found in other more sinister substances? It obviously wouldn't make sense if they were going around banning asthma medication.

Having said that, I remember in my playing days lads taking a suck out of an inhaler before matches, who never used it and didn't have asthma. Basically they thought it gave them better lung capacity during the game. That's probably rubbish, but I don't know.

[blanketattack]

Sloppy work altogether. If it was well known what can and cannot be taken, there's no excuse.

So a player who uses an inhaler should be able to work out exactly what the level of Salbutamol in their blood stream is before each time they use an inhaler?
So they should remember how many times they used the inhaler in the previous 48 hours, whether a full inhale or a partial one, plus include other factors that can affect the level such as dehydration, fatigue and any other medical ailments such as having the flu and from this calculate what their salbutamol levels are before inhaling again, and do all this while their gasping for air and if they find out that they are over the 1000ng limit what should they do if they're gasping for air? Just sit it out until they pass out?

[paddypastit]

Does the team doctors in GAA not perform the same task?

Depends on the team and the doctor I suspect but in my direct experience - yes. Anybody on the team that needd anything medical went to the team doc first, not the GP

Despite a few attempts here to suggest otherwise, it is a story and there is little or no excuse for anybody at intercounty level to get caught.  The case wouldn't be helped by the reality that the inhalers are beneficial to anyone trying to breath more clearly and I've seen and know of players that used them even though they were not medically diagnosed asmatics.

To be excluded from any sanction, the player involved will have to have registered in advance as requiring an inhaler - you basically get an exemption from anything that you are prescribed by a doctor.  If you don't have that in advance, then it is deemed as an offence.  If you can convinve the Doping people that it was a genuine error you get off with a reprimand, like the swimmer Bree before the Olympics.  If not...

[JMohan]

In the Eng Premiership the team doctor has to veto everything that a player takes even from the most basic cough medicine. Does the team doctors in GAA not perform the same task?

Some of the doctors even give the stuff out!!!!

[JMohan]

It's happened with rugby a few times. It's in an enhaler.
It's a banned substance but they shouldn't be banned. The drug itself, it's not even near an enhancer, it makes you sleepy and tired and it's pretty much the opposite to preformance enhancing.
A few rugby players, Frankie Sheahan being one, got tested positive for it, but after the other players kicked up a fuss, O Gara, Stringer, Wallace, O Connell, all have asthma, and all fought his corner like crazy, they all did, becuase it was ridiculous and his suspension was reduced.
He tested positive for the same drug, Salbutamol. He first got a ban of 2 years but it was reduced way down to 3 months.

It's ridiculous. It doens't enhance the preformance of a player, it does the opposite, they've a right to breath. Some stupid rule shouldn't stop that. To put a barrier up between asthma sufferes and other athletes.

1. It does work
2. The Asmathic claim in many cases is nonsense. Do you know how many pro athletes 'claim' to be asmathic? Well it's FAR greater than the normal distribution in the normal population. Many doctors are conned into disgnosising it as an illness... if you're a pro athlete you'll know how to do it.

[Bud Wiser]

Dodgy ould gear according to this report:

This study of the effects of supra-therapeutic doses of inhaled salbutamol on endurance cycling in non-asthmatic athletes found the drug enhanced performance to a significant degree – enough to give users a real advantage in competitive events.

In a double-blind, randomised cross-over study, 16 athletes performed two trials – at least four days apart – in which they had to perform a certain amount of work as fast as possible on a cycle ergometer, 30 minutes after inhaling either 800µg salbutamol or placebo. In the second trial the conditions were reversed, with those taking placebo switched to the active drug, and vice versa. Performance times were recorded and a range of blood and respiratory measurements were taken before and after exercise.

The most important finding was that average performance time on salbutamol was reduced by 82.7 seconds – 3,927.6 seconds (65 minutes), compared with 4,010.2 seconds, a difference of just under 2%. As the researchers point out: 'The relevance of a more than 1-minute improvement in an approximately 1-hour time trial for competitive events is obvious.'

[pedro]

To get grants they had to sign up to the antidoping rules but would not and should not have to as amateur players.

Nonsense. the IC players were eligible for the grants for a number of reasons, one of them being that they had already been signed up to international anti doping regulations years before. the GAA sign IC players up to those codes yonks ago.
being prescribed the inhaler doesn't clear you at all. it must be submitted to croke park at the relevent time or is looked upon as manipulation.
lads, there is abuse of performance enhancers out there in our games. there is no doubt in my mind.

That's not quite the way I remember it. I'm nearly sure that players had to sign up to a variety of things in order to qualify for grants. Like professionals, they had to sign up to drug tests, make team/individual goals at the start of the year, make development plans etc. Now, I could be wrong on this but I think it's something the GPA and Sports Council agreed on prior to vetoing the grants.

You would have to feel for the player. Yes, if he was on the inhaler he should have been declaring it but a lot of the blame must lie with the doctor/backroom team. At the end of the day, there's more chance of a Kerry footballer being drug tested than, say, a Louth hurler (more high profile, play more games etc.) so you would have thought they would leave nothing to chance.

[ONeill]

Sloppy work altogether. If it was well known what can and cannot be taken, there's no excuse.

So a player who uses an inhaler should be able to work out exactly what the level of Salbutamol in their blood stream is before each time they use an inhaler?
So they should remember how many times they used the inhaler in the previous 48 hours, whether a full inhale or a partial one, plus include other factors that can affect the level such as dehydration, fatigue and any other medical ailments such as having the flu and from this calculate what their salbutamol levels are before inhaling again, and do all this while their gasping for air and if they find out that they are over the 1000ng limit what should they do if they're gasping for air? Just sit it out until they pass out?

100% yes. If not the player, the medical team.

[pedro]

Oh, and PM me the name if anyone knows!

[marty88]

Oh, and PM me the name if anyone knows!

Lads get a pm sent my way aswel please. Lovely bit of gossip this

[pedro]

I agree in that the Salbutamol could be used in a way to enhance performance but my guess would be that it was just an inhaler which was not properly declared to the Doping Council (I would be surpised if it wasn't). What I'm most surprised about is that for a team like Kerry who are so high profile, so well prepared etc you would imagine that they would ensure all the "dopiing" boxes had been ticked off. If a team like Kerry can't get it right what chance is there that smaller teams who mightn't have regular access to a team doctor would have similar "drug takers"?