Pete Bol's phone had doping instructions

Dude is shady.

theage.com.au

Screenshot found on Bol’s phone contained doping details

Michael Gleeson, Nick McKenzie

The Australian runner’s lawyer labelled the discovery meaningless and its airing by WADA an attempt to shirk responsibility.

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He's dirty and that's simply because you don't test positive for synthetic EPO if you're not doping. He got real lucky to be let off, or perhaps he bribed the right person/people since his career was on the line.

Olympicmedal hopeful Peter Bol has once more had his integrity dramatically
challenged by the world anti-doping body amid the airing of previously
secret evidence uncovered on the runner’s phone, sparking furious
accusations the anti-doping body had “disgracefully smeared” the
Australian champion.
A hearing before an international tribunal
has heard how anti-doping officials from Australia, who seized Bol’s
phone and computer during the investigation into a positive drug test,
had found a screenshot on the phone with information from a former
distributor of performance-enhancing drugs, Victor Conte, about how to
micro-dose EPO and how to evade drug testers.

But
Bol’s lawyer, Paul Greene, has labelled that discovery meaningless and
its airing by the World Anti-Doping Authority an appalling attempt to
shirk responsibility for falsely accusing his client of doping in
allegations which were withdrawn last year, allowing Bol to resume his
career and compete for Australia at the upcoming Paris Olympics.
“The
position they took in the hearing was ‘Peter was actually guilty, but
we just didn’t catch him’. It was a truly astounding position, but
telling that WADA lives in a fishbowl,” Greene recently argued in the
Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The
ongoing skirmish between global anti-doping authorities and Bol
occurred during a hearing involving a Croatian soccer player, also
represented by Greene, who is also fighting an EPO doping charge. Greene
told this masthead the Australian Olympian had “graciously allowed”
footballer Mario Vuskovic to use details from Bol’s collapsed doping
case to prove his own innocence.
But in a surprise development in
the Court of Arbitration for Sport case heard last week, scientists from
WADA challenged the assertion that Bol had recorded a “false positive”
in his first failed drug test and said his case had only been dropped
due to the time that elapsed between tests which caused degradation of
the urine samples.

The
evidence from the scientists and arguments from WADA’s lawyers reveal
the deep, unresolved tension between officials from WADA and Bol’s camp.
WADA
still appears to believe the Australian 800m runner has questions to
answer, while Bol’s supporters say the authority can’t accept it was
wrong and is trying to save face after its bungled investigation.
Domestic
anti-doping agency, Sport Integrity Australia, has not been accused of
wrongdoing by Greene. Bol’s lawyer instead praised its conduct in dropping the case against Bol last year after retesting his original positive drug test, his A sample, and not finding it positive for the presence of EPO.
In a statement, Sport Integrity Australia declined to comment on the developments.
But
it was the airing of information from Sport Integrity Australia’s Bol
probe during Vuskovic’s appeal against his two-year EPO ban that sparked
the claims and counter-claims involving the Australian.
During
the Court of Arbitration for Sport hearing, WADA’s lawyer revealed that
Sport Integrity Australia investigators had seized Bol’s phone and
discovered a screenshot of a letter from sport drug trafficker Conte to
British sprinter Dwain Chambers.
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The
letter discussed micro-dosing EPO and how to avoid drug testers. The
hearing was told it was photographed by Bol five weeks before he was
drug-tested and returned an initial positive drug test.
WADA
scientists insisted in the hearing that Bol’s case did not involve a
false positive but that testing results were obscured as a result of the
degradation of his urine sample in the three months between testing of
his initial A sample, and the testing of his second B sample. His first
sample was then also retested eight months after it was initially
tested.
The investigation into Bol was conducted by Sport Integrity Australia but it relied on testing carried out by WADA labs.
Greene
accused WADA of continuing to defame Bol in the hearing, saying the
position it had taken had no credibility or support, and it was
incapable of admitting mistakes.
“WADA would never have agreed to a review and to strengthen EPO testing and procedures
in light of the Bol outcome if there was degradation of the sample.
They are still defaming Mr Bol in this hearing and it’s just a total
disgrace,” Greene said.
WADA argued it was Greene who had
introduced the issue of Bol’s seized computer and phone being found to
be “clean” and it was only responding to an inaccurate assertion.

“There
was a screenshot found on Mr Bol’s phone which was an article which
included a letter from Victor Conte to [former UK Sprinter] Dwain
Chambers discussing micro-dosing with EPO in the off-season and there
was also discussion [of] various techniques to game the whereabouts
system, putting in inaccurate information, making sure your voicemail
was full,” WADA’s general counsel Ross Wenzel said. The whereabouts
system requires athletes to report where they can be located for
out-of-competition drug testing.
“This is an article about using
EPO, how to use it in the off-season and the screenshot was opened on Mr
Bol’s phone on the sixth of September 2022, a month and five days
before a sample initially categorised as positive was collected on the
11th of October 2022,” Wenzel said.
“When
he was interviewed about this and asked about the screenshot which was
on his phone – it was not in his search history it was actually
something that had been saved on his phone – the answer was, ‘oh, I read
a lot of things, I am interested in learning and all that’.
“I
make no comment and do not ask the panel to draw any conclusions about
whether or not there was endogenous EPO in the [Bol] sample. I only
raise that because of what was said in Mr Greene’s closing.”

Conte
was the founder and CEO of BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative),
based in California, who served four months in jail after pleading
guilty to conspiracy to distribute steroids.
Chambers is a former
world 100 metres bronze medallist who served a two-year ban for using
the banned drug THG (Tetrahydrogestrinone, a steroid known as The
Clear), which had been supplied to him by Conte.
WADA’s scientists and lawyers said Bol’s case had been dropped because of degradation of the sample, not a false positive.
“The Bol case, we had a very low recombinant EPO signal in the A sample
which was weakened in the B sample confirmed three months later. This
time issue is important when you are looking at samples with such low
concentration of recombinant EPO, as in the Bol case, because you can
have degradation over time,” WADA scientist Yvette Dehnes told the
hearing.
Another WADA scientist, Dr Sven Voss, added: “It was not
only time, it was the freeze and thaw cycle in between (testing) which
could have affected the concentration.”

Dehnes
said: “When the A sample was re-analysed eight months later, the signal
was too low for detection so the degradation had been completed.”
Greene rejected this and said there was no evidence there was ever any synthetic EPO in Bol’s system.
“WADA
clearly will never admit it made a mistake even when the mistake is
obvious to the whole world – like Peter Bol’s false positive. They are
taking a position which has no credibility and no support,” he said.
Greene
said that Vuskovic, like Bol, had provided “effort urine” after a
training session and the sample was “overloaded” by scientists and gave
an inaccurate return.
“The same thing that caused a false positive
in Peter Bol’s case. I am amazed that this joint panel still does not
recognise what happened in Peter’s case and that it was a false positive
even though SIA [Sport Integrity Australia] did the right thing and
reanalysed the sample,” Greene told the court.
“There was no
evidence there was EPO in Peter Bol’s sample and the report says as
much. It was a negative sample, but somehow they are still saying there
was a low amount of EPO. WADA will never admit when it makes a mistake
and it will not admit it in the Bol case.”
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Greene said former WADA head David Howman had been scathing of the handling of the Bol case.
Howman last year described the case as a disaster for doping authorities.
“The
worst thing that could happen is what happened in that [Bol] case,” he
said. “What we must do is to ensure that the process can be reviewed and
reconducted in a way that doesn’t end up in such a disaster. It’s not
fair on the athlete.”

So I read the article and it's definitely not a good look for Bol. However, having screenshots of images from an article is not damning evidence. I've definitely had articles about doping pulled up on my phone just because I'm curious about it and generally enjoy reading about the subject. However, the only drugs I've taken for sports performance are beta alanine and that sticky, icky green stuff.

If you're a pro in the testing pool, what the hell are you doing saving that on the phone though.

I mean, yeah not a great idea. This is the same guy that took a lie detector test on TV to prove his innocence—lie detectors are nonsense rubbish. BUT, there's nothing against the rules about reading. I have a copy of "How to Disappear in America Without a Trace" on my bookshelf, which suggests more than a few illegal things.

I thought his body language looked off during those interviews that he did talking about his innocence, but I let it slide once his B sample came back. This makes me wonder…

The B sample had degraded. Having synthetic epo in your system is not easily explained away.

Why are there still lawyers involved if he was exonerated? Is he trying to sue the AIU for loss of earnings or something?

Furthermore I remember reading the letter in question several times before, it's been tweeted by journalists before. Doesn't seem impossible that he saw one such tweet and screenshotted it rather than plotting to actually do it. Furthermore a lot of the stuff in the letter wasn't really effective in 2024 either. Will concede it's not a good look though lol, although if everyone had their laptop and phone subpoenad people could probably paint a completely false picture and make it look convincing. It is what it is

The fact that the letter specifically pertained to EPO also doesn't look great. Either way he's not going to be a factor in the 800 so I don't particularly care lol

Hear that? It’s Rinaldi scurrying under a rock.

guy tests positive and gets a ban, sics a sports doping lawyer on the testing folks, all of a sudden it's "expert disagree," they force a change in aussie dope testing, aussie doping folks not so much exonerate him as drop the case, "due to the time that elapsed between tests which caused degradation of the urine samples" inasmuch as the new protocol wasn't used to test the samples, which are now no good.

bol foolishly goes on warpath to further clear name, australia doping then throws the screenshot on the table. he had garden hosed the mud off himself and by not leaving it at that has basically bellyflopped back in the mudpit.

congratulations.

+1

Greene.... that's the same shady guy who invented the Burrito 🌯 Theory and spread his lies in the infamous press conference, pretending it was only 5 ng/ml and there was no B sample etc.

I assume that's femkes dad? Knew she was dirty

The saved on the phone thing is suspicious because he seemingly removed it from his search history OR someone sent it to him (and he deleted the history of that interaction). The whole "I'm just interested in these things and reading about them" works best if there was a pattern of him with like "how do athletes get away with microdosing?" in his search history. No question that'd be suspicious as hell, but you could play the curious angle on that. But it looks like a botched cover-up and he might've been using that screenshot as a de facto manual.

Imagine doping and still being off the podium in every competition and the only thing you have to show for is a commonwealth silver lol

Also we are kinda missing Coevett (and some other posters) here. He has long theorized that Templeton had the effective tactic of getting a prime athlete (e.g. Bernard Lagat) off the hook for microdosing EPO by having the samples degrade during the appeals process to scuttle the analysis. It seems WADA shares that view in this case, though I'm not sure if it was argued for Lagat.

Oh, this guy is guilty as hell. I have no idea how he got out of that positive test. Ran 1:46.75 at Worlds after getting cleared and being off the sauce. This guy is a non-factor if he's not juicing.