Disgraced cricketer Shane Warne had more than once taken the weight-loss pill that earned him a 12-month doping ban.
Warne is still considering an appeal against the suspension imposed by the Australian Cricket Board’s anti-doping tribunal last Saturday and still proclaiming that the biggest doping scandal in cricket was the result of an innocent mistake.
The 33-year-old legspinner broke three days of silence to appear on the Channel Nine network on Tuesday evening, when he claimed that he’d never used or needed performance-enhancing drugs and reiterated that he didn’t know a diet pill his mother gave him contained banned diuretics.
Warne returned a positive test on January 22, on the eve of his international comeback from an injured shoulder. He claims he unwittingly took the diuretics, contained in the fluid pill his mother gave him, so he’d look his best for TV cameras.
His previous doping test was on December 12, three days before he dislocated his bowling shoulder in a limited-overs match against England.
He told A Current Affair that evidence from both tests proved that he didn’t use the diuretics as a masking agent for other drugs that might have assisted his rapid recovery.
”I was tested on December 12 which was negative … I was injured on the 15th,” Warne said. ”It came up at the hearing that there were small traces of the same ingredients that I was tested positive for in January.
”I admitted to the hearing that I had taken a tablet in early December.”
Warne said in December he’d been run down after a series of promotions for his wine label, which involved drinking and late nights.
”I took a fluid tablet then – that was the first time (Mom) gave it to me. It was to get rid of a double chin,” he said. ”The December 12 test showed small traces of the same thing. That was before my operation — that proves I didn’t take the fluid tablet to mask anything.”
Warne said his positive test was the result of ignorance and vanity and had probably cost him up to three-million Australian dollars (US$1,8-million) in lost contract fees, match payments and bonuses.
He maintained that he was trying to look his best and had spent months losing weight in a bid to improve his condition and extend his test career.
ACB chief executive James Sutherland backed Warne’s explanation, saying it was unfair of critics to brand Warne a drug cheat because he didn’t use performance-enhancing substances.
Warne said he understood that the ACB’s anti-doping panel had to impose some punishment, but 12 months was too harsh. The maximum punishment under the ACB’s anti-doping guidelines was 24 months. The ACB said it would release the reasons for the tribunal’s finding within days.
”For us, the World Cup is like the Olympics, it only happens once every four years,” Warne said. ”I’d announced my retirement from one-day cricket — for me it was my last opportunity to play one-day cricket for Australia — so by missing the World Cup, for me was the end of the world.”
After the doping case was revealed February 11, an hour before Australia started its World Cup defence in South Africa, his skipper Ricky Ponting described Warne’s use of a weight-loss pill as naive and stupid.
Those sentiments were echoed by commentators and rivals across the cricket world. ”I don’t consider myself stupid,” Warne said. ”I’m probably very silly, I should have checked” what was in the pills.
”There’s been talk about me blaming my mum — (but) I take responsibility for what goes into my mouth.”
Warne said his lawyers had an appeal written, but he was undecided whether or not to lodge it. He has until Saturday to decide.
”One side of me says ‘get out there, appeal and get less penalty because it’s not fair’,” he said. ”Another side of me says ‘I’m a human being, I want to get on with my life, cop the penalty and just get on with it’.”
Warne said he wouldn’t be rushed into a decision on the appeal or his movements for the next 12 months. – Sapa-AP