Shane Warne’s excuse that he failed a doping test because of a pill he’d been given by his mother was a nonsense, said Australian Medical Association President Dr. Kerryn Phelps.
The Australian cricket great withdrew from the World Cup in South Africa after being notified of the doping case and flew back to Australia late on Wednesday. He confirmed that his mother gave him the prescription diuretic tablet that he’d taken the day of he flunked the doping test.
He was tested on January 22, the eve of his comeback from a dislocated shoulder. ”Shane Warne has said that he didn’t take the diuretic because of part of his shoulder treatment, so goodness knows what he was taking it for,” Phelps told reporters.
The Australian Sports Drug Agency had a telephone hotline service for athletes to find out if a drug or ingredient of a medication is on the banned list for athletes, Phelps said.
”You can’t use mom as an excuse because mom could call the hotline,” Phelps said. ”And any parents of elite athletes who are even slightly tempted to give their athletic offspring a tablet to take, ring the hotline and find out whether it’s OK.
”Because chances are they’re going to get tested; if they get tested and they’ve taken a banned substance, they’ll be sprung and they may well be banned.”
Phelps said elite athletes had been made aware of the importance of checking all medication and diet supplements with ASDA, which conducts doping tests on athletes in Australia.
”Any elite athlete knows that their entire career could hinge on taking a tablet that is banned in sport,” she said. ”There really isn’t an excuse for an athlete not to check and not to know.”
Warne will face an Australian Cricket Board anti-doping panel as soon as the result of the ”B” sample from the initial is analysed by ASDA, most likely on the weekend.
Warne said his mother, Brigitte, had given him a fluid pill on the eve of his international comeback. He said it was Moduretic, a prescription medication for hypertension, high blood pressure and fluid retention.
”Contrary to speculation, taking it had nothing to do with treatment for my shoulder injury or for masking any banned substance,” said Warne, who’d shed at least 12 kilogrammes in a year.
Warne said he had never used a performance enhancing drug.
Diuretics are on the International Cricket Council’s list of banned drugs because they can be used to mask steroid use.
Drugs ”have no place in cricket and I do not condone them in any way,” he said. His previous doping test was on December 12 and didn’t show any signs of drugs. He dislocated his shoulder in a fielding accident against England on December 15.
Under the ACB’s anti-doping regulations, Warne faces a two-year ban if its three-person independent tribunal finds that he deliberately used the diuretic to cover up use of other drugs.
If the tribunal rules that he unwittingly ingested a low grade ”prohibited substance,” his ban could be less than three months.
The ACB hasn’t announced who will be on the tribunal or when it will meet. – Sapa-AP