Priestley blames food poisoning for positive drugs test
CALLUM Priestley has denied he is a drug cheat - insisting his positive test was down to food poisoning.
DENIAL: Callum Priestley has denied he took drugs, after receiving a two-year ban from UK Anti-Doping (Action Images)
The promising sprint hurdler produced an adverse finding for Clenbuterol during an out of competition drugs test while attending a UK Athletics training camp in South Africa earlier this year.
Priestley, ranked third in Britain last year with a personal best of 13.56 seconds, has consistently denied any wrongdoing but the UK Anti-Doping yesterday confirmed a two-year suspension while he is also facing a lifetime Olympic ban.
He claims Clenbuterol - a banned substance that can be used to burn fat - is illegally used by farmers in South Africa to promote growth of their livestock.
The 21-year old added that the food poisoning he suffered during the training camp in Stellenbosch showed clear symptoms of Clenbuterol poisoning.
He also claimed he was frustrated by the lack of official support in his campaign to prove his innocence.
"I think not to test us to trace the food poisoning was a mistake that has pretty well cost me a chance to represent Britain in the Olympics," he said.
"All I can think about is that there was Clenbuterol in the food we ate. There are cases of proven food poisoning by Clenbuterol round the world, but without tests at the time nobody can prove it either way. I'd never even heard of Clenbuterol before the result came through.
"At first, this result came as a total shock to me, but I am not a drugs cheat, so I assumed there would be a logical explanation for it and that UK Athletics would be as keen as I was to find out how on earth it came to be in my body.
"I'm really shattered I can't participate in a sport I love, but I'm also totally frustrated in the lack of any official support to try and find an explanation for the failed drug test."
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Chris At the time he was
Chris
At the time he was diagnosed by a fully qualified medical professional as having son=mehting other than food posioning. what are UKA meant to do, assume the doctor has it wrong and do loads of tests?
His defence has massive holes in it. His defence team cannot come up with a single case of clenbuterol poisoning in South Africa, and the articles they link to (or at least the info that comes up for public consumption) do not show any cases where the poisoning level woudl cause a fail. Add to that that the articles they put togehter say it goes through the system in 72 hours in most cases and the test was "a few days" after he went down with food poisoning, and I don't think he has been hung ou to dry.
The clenbuterol food poisoning defence is untestable, but also unlikley even based upon the evidence of his own defence team. Furthermore the main 2 artciles hey link to to supposedly show a breakdown in the duty of care of UKA are from June 2010, AFTER the event.
Unfortunately there are cheats in this world and they have been known to lie about whether they are taking drugs, so on that basis the drug rules do not let you get off scot free if you can come up with an untestable hypothesis as to how you may have got the drugs in your system.
If Callum is actually innocent it si of course a great shame, but he should blame those who cheat not those with the task of trying to root out cheats. If we start letign off for being able to come up with an excuse that has never before caused someone to have enough of a substance in their body to fail a test, in a country where the drug is illegal, and has not had a case of food poisoning related to that drug, when the test was some days after the food poisoning (and so the substnace should have been through the system) then the only way to safely catch cheats and give them bans would be to catch them in the process of taking th edrug, and that isn't going to happen
Priestley's ban, UKADs shame
It's not Priestley who has been shamed by this result, it's UKA and Andy Parkinson at UKAD. They triumphantly strut about proclaiming that the ban - the first in SIX YEARS - is a great victory for their anti-doping policies, when in fact it shows just the opposite. Priestley's defense - he'd never heard of Clenbuterol let alone knowingly taken it - might be sneered at by the powers to be, but they've done NOTHING to prove otherwise. At the time of the test, a group of our Olympic hopefuls suffered food posioning whilst trianing under UKA's auspices in South Africa. Did UKA not for one moment think it might be a good idea to try and check why? Their lack of professionalism is outstanding. But oh no, it's simply the athletes' responsibility, not theirs. Washing their hands of any part in this, UKA and UKAD simply tell us Priestley's as guilty as hell, that they are doing a great job, and what a wonderful process they have, no matter that athletes who have no idea how a banned drug got into their system. Hang them out to dry along with the guilty - what a great message that sends out to aspiring athletes. "we don't care if you're genuinely honest, we're going to make an example of you come what may"
Callum Priestley
How refreshing your article is!!!!
Some athletes are left out to dry and the press doesn't report both sides evenly.
Many thanks for putting Callum's perspective across in such an even-handed way.
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