Track star Peter Bol is demanding Australia’s anti-doping agency do better after independent tests revealed he never tested positive to drugs.
Bol’s lawyer Paul Greene is demanding Sport Integrity Australia drop a “sham” case and admit there’s no evidence against the middle distance runner.
In a statement, Bol’s lawyers said SIA had “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”.
And Bol, the nation’s highest-profile track athlete, said he was disappointed in SIA and also Athletics Australia’s lack of support in the doping saga.
Bol was told on January 10 of a positive result to the banned drug erythropoietin, known as EPO, in his A sample from a test three months prior.
He was provisionally suspended by Athletics Australia. The ban was lifted when the results of a second set of testing, on the B sample, did not confirm the initial findings.
Mr Greene also sent the samples for independent testing at two laboratories and he said results showed no trace of any banned substance.
“It’s nothing worth celebrating because it shouldn’t have happened to start with,” Bol told radio station 2GB on Wednesday.
“It’s brutal … I am completely innocent.
“[I] never used any performance substances, never used any drugs – I am just a good athlete, I train and I put in the work.”
A dual Olympian and a Commonwealth Games silver medallist in his pet event, the 800 metres, Bol was bewildered why SIA said he had failed a drugs test and how the finding was leaked to the media.
“Do better. Just do better,” he said of his message to SIA.
SIA had no comment at this stage, a spokesman said.
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Peter Bol's provisional suspension lifted
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Bol said he was also frustrated at a lack of support from Athletics Australia.
“It has been pretty disappointing from my own governing body to not stand behind me during that and … just check up on me, I don’t think it’s that hard to do,” he said.
The athlete said he “wasn’t guilty, waiting for a miracle”.
“I was innocent and waiting for it to be proved,” he said.
“I knew it would come. The people who analysed it had no idea who I was, and it shows in detail how [it was] messed up. I want them to acknowledge that.
“I don’t want to fight, but I don’t want to go quietly either. We want to improve the whole sport. You can’t have innocent athletes getting done for something they’ve never used.”
Mr Greene said he sent Bol’s samples to two independent laboratories.
“We had 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,” he told the Nine Network.
He called on SIA to admit its errors.
“They just couldn’t get it right, they had no idea what they were doing,” Mr Greene said.
“The worst part of it now is: One, it was announced first of all, which it 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.”
Mr Greene said SIA had “absolutely no evidence at all” of any wrongdoing.
“There is no urine sample positive, there is no evidence he took anything in his urine, it’s 100 per cent negative,” he said.
“There was nothing on his phone. There is nothing on his computer. There’s absolutely zero evidence.
“They just need to say, ‘We have no evidence, we messed this up, this was a mistake’.”
– with AAP
