THE supplement that led to Kerry footballer Brendan O’Sullivan failing a drug test did not list the banned substance among its ingredients, the official Sport Ireland report has revealed.
When he took Falcon Labs Oxyburn Pro Superthermotech he was not aware that it contained the prohibited stimulant methylhexaneamine (MHA).
But the report, published this afternoon, confirms that the player did not seek advice from the Kerry team medical staff, including a nutritionist and the team doctor, or his own GP prior to taking the supplement.
O’Sullivan tested positive for MHA after last year’s National League final defeat to Dublin. He had taken a caffeine tablet from the product he had purchased before the game and at half-time.
O’Sullivan made a declaration to the testers of the medication and supplements he had taken in the two-week period leading up to the league final and they were Augmentin, whey protein, Pharmaton, Pre-fuel, caffeine tablets, caffeine gel, vitamin C, Krill oil and magnesium.
Following official testing in an accredited laboratory in Cologne, he was handed an initial seven-month ban by Sport Ireland but this was reduced to 21 weeks after appeals.
The report reveals that when O’Sullivan joined the Kerry panel in 2016 he was given a supplement regime and told the products had been checked for contamination and prohibited substances.
He disliked the taste of one of the products – a caffeine gel – and before the final a casual friend he met at a gym suggested substituting the gel for a caffeine tablet that turned out to be Falcon Labs Oxyburn Pro.
O’Sullivan purchased the product in a vitamin shop in Cork and an internet search he conducted gave no indication that the it might contain a banned substance. The container recommended that users should consult a doctor in advance of taking the product but O’Sullivan did not do so.
Sport Ireland accepted that it was a contaminated product case, that O’Sullivan bore no significant fault or negligence and specified a sanction of seven months which it considered appropriate.
Sport Ireland tested leftover tablets from the tub he opened against tablets from a separate, unopened tub and they were satisfied that the player’s supplement had been contaminated.
The Kerry player declined to accept the seven-month sanction and the matter was referred to the GAA Anti-Doping Hearings Committee where a sanction of 26 weeks was imposed.
O’Sullivan again appealed to the Irish Sport Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel and the sanction was reduced to 21 weeks. He was provisionally suspended from the May 13 to July 28 2016, a period of 11 weeks at which time his provisional suspension was lifted by the Chair of the Irish Sport Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel because the violation was likely to have involved a contaminated product.
The remaining 10 weeks of ineligibility was deemed by the Irish Sport Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel to have commenced on the 26 February 2017, the date of his last participation in the Kerry panel.
The full report is available here
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