Cleared MacLeod lashes out at doping authorities

SCOTT MacLeod is still struggling to comprehend the past five weeks of his life, his rugby career having appeared to be hanging by a thread as he trained alone, suspended for an alleged second drugs infringement.

The 29-year-old Scarlets and Scotland lock has had a year he will probably never forget, and while now cleared to resume playing he remains disturbed at how a night out with friends put his rugby career on the line.

"I don't really now how to feel," he said yesterday. "I'm more frustrated and angry than anything. People keep saying 'well done', but that doesn't make me feel any better. That suggests I've done something good, or that I've beaten something, when, actually, I was never in the wrong.

"I am a big supporter of ensuring sport is clean and drugs cheats getting what they deserve, but when the governing bodies know alcohol can make testosterone levels rise above the ratio they have set, yet still wait ten months, and put your career on hold, treating you like some kind of drugs cheat, before simply asking you if you drank anything, something's not right with the system. I can't say I feel relieved to be honest, though it is a weight off my shoulders."

When MacLeod was given a warning last February over failing to get a new exemption certificate for his asthma treatment, when he temporarily switched inhaler, he was told another infringement of the strict drug-testing procedures would lead to an automatic two-year ban.

He volunteered to go public on the issue to warn other athletes of the need for accurate Therapeutic Use Exemption forms, and promised he would not be caught out again. Then came the call in October that UK Sport had decided he had "a case to answer" for a second time, this time related to unusually high levels of testosterone.

His identity should not have been disclosed, but a Welsh journalist uncovered the problem when MacLeod was suddenly withdrawn from the Scarlets' Heineken Cup team.

"I couldn't believe it when I got the call at the airport," he said. "To be honest, I thought it was a wind-up.

"I was with the Scarlets getting on the plane for the Heineken Cup match at Stade Francais. It was a huge game for me because I hadn't been sure of my place in the team, but I was picked for what was a massive game for the club.

"When it was obvious the call was serious, I had to confront the players and coaches and tell them I wasn't able to play, because I was being accused of . . . I don't know what.

"I was told I hadn't failed any tests, but I had no information. It's the whole thing about drugs in sport, the presumption of guilt. There was no doubt that it was all heaped on to me at that point, one big mess; 'get yourself out of that'."

While the Scarlets squad flew to Paris, MacLeod returned home to his wife Adele and two-month-old daughter Braedyn, to face an uncertain future. He was banned indefinitely, and while UK Sport procedures recommend a hearing within two weeks, the SRU took until Friday – five weeks – to determine that he, in fact, had no case to answer and there was no need for a hearing.

"I had no idea about alcohol and testosterone levels," MacLeod admitted, "but when I read the detailed accounts from the UK Sport panel investigating my case a professor commented that alcohol could be a factor in a reading like mine. That was when I realised – the date of the test was the day after Adele had told me she was pregnant with our first child.

"I was up in Edinburgh because the Six Nations preparation was beginning. We had an optional weights session on the Friday morning (where he was tested], so me and a couple of friends went out for a few drinks on the Thursday night to celebrate.

"I'm not saying it's a good idea for an athlete to go out and have a few drinks, and I rarely do that, but I had just found out I was going to be a dad.

"Looking back, it's easy to say I should have stayed in, or not bothered with weights on the Friday. I wasn't out of the box, I was committed to Scotland and it was ten days from our first international with France (he was a replacement].

"It's not illegal and I can't believe it led to a ten-month investigation, and then a five-week ban, my career hanging there and then them deciding 'OK, fair enough, it was just alcohol; you've done nothing wrong; carry on'.

"While they were making their minds up, I missed Heineken Cup and league games, the awesome last-ever game at Stradey Park and autumn Tests against New Zealand, South Africa and Canada. You can't put a price on a Scotland cap. I don't know if I would have been selected, but having started the last five Tests, I'd hoped to be involved.

"Now, who knows where I stand? How many people look at me now and think 'there's no smoke without fire'?"

Clearly, the frustration in MacLeod will take some time to quell. He is supported by the Scarlets and the SRU, who plan to write to UK Sport urging a review of testosterone analysis. Meanwhile, the Hawick-born forward returns to training with the Scarlets today, hoping headlines in the future are confined to his actions on the park.


Q & A

Q: When was Scott MacLeod's test and what was the outcome of it?

A: MacLeod's test was on 25 January at Murrayfield. There was a positive reading for terbutaline, and a high T/E level (the ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone). High T/E levels can come about through doping, but a test almost two years earlier had already revealed that MacLeod had a high T/E level which might occur naturally.

Q: What happened next?

A: In February a judicial committee appointed by the Scottish Rugby Union found that MacLeod, who was known to take treatment for asthma, had not filled in the form required to be allowed to use the inhaler which had produced the terbutaline ruling. The committee ruled that the player had violated the anti-doping rules and gave him a formal warning, but allowed him to resume playing. Research into the T/E finding, meanwhile, continued.

Q: How was the T/E finding eventually resolved?

A: UK Sport, having analysed five samples from MacLeod, decided in September that there was a case to answer. Backed by some research done by his agent into a previous case, MacLeod suggested his acute alcohol ingestion on the night before the test could have produced the high reading. Last Thursday, UK Sport wrote to the SRU accepting that was "more likely than not" the correct reason for the finding. The SRU then referred the matter to a review panel of three experts, who had earlier agreed that the player had a case to answer. The following day they recommended that no further action be taken against MacLeod.

Q: Who was on the panel?

A: Sheriff Bill Dunlop; Stewart Hillis, the director of the sports medicine centre and professor of cardiovascular and exercise medicine at Glasgow University: and Michelle Jeffrey, a sport and exercise doctor with the Scottish Institute of Sport.

Q: What happens now?

A: MacLeod is free to carry on playing for his Welsh club, the Scarlets, and for Scotland. The SRU is to warn its players of the risk that alcohol could produce a high T/E reading which would see them investigated for a potential doping offence.

STUART BATHGATE