Thursday, September 30, 2004

THEY MUST BE TAKING THE PISS?

An athlete helps out his mates by providing urine samples for them to give to testing authorities, and then they all fail because he has taken a banned diuretic...

A Farul Constanta player has admitted supplying urine for two team mates who failed dope tests after a Romanian first division match last month.
A Romanian Professional League (LPF) official said on Thursday an investigation had shown that the urine samples taken from midfielders Iulian Apostol and Adrian Senin were completed by Mihai Baicu.
"Baicu confirmed he had made a contribution to his colleagues' urine samples because they were not able to offer enough substance after the effort of the match," LPF first vice-president Robi Urs told Reuters.
"Baicu revealed that he had taken the diuretic substance of furosemide in order to lose some weight but he did not know that it was a banned substance," Urs said.
"He put his urine in his team mates' test tubes with their agreement."
Urs said the investigation would be extended to the medical team who gathered the samples after Farul Constanta drew 1-1 with Sportul Studentesc.
"If convicted of fresh charges, all three players will be punished for forging the doping investigation's results...The punishment will surely be more severe than for the first doping offence," Urs said.
Under the Romanian soccer federation's rules, a player failing a dope test faces a ban of up to two years if the result of a second sample also proves positive.