GAELIC GAMES DRUGS DECISION:KERRY FOOTBALLER Aidan O'Mahony is free to play in the upcoming National Football League after being exonerated from charges of doping although he was reprimanded for an error in the completion of his application for a TUE (Therapeutic Use Exemption) to allow him take medication for asthma.

It was, however, found that the player hadn’t been attempting to enhance his performance and that: “This decision or ruling should not be interpreted as casting any aspersion on Mr O’Mahony’s integrity.”

The news emerged yesterday after the decision of the GAA’s Anti-Doping Hearings Committee in relation to an adverse analytical finding from a sample provided by the player after the 2008 All-Ireland football final. O’Mahony, known to be a long-term asthmatic, was found to have higher than permitted levels of the drug Salbutamol in his system.

Although the levels were considerably higher (1977 ng/mL) than the 1000 ng/mL permitted, the committee accepted that the result was the consequence of the therapeutic use of inhaling the drug and not an attempt to gain unfair advantage.

The player was reprimanded because on his own admission he took quantities of the drug that exceeded what he had registered as being his customary therapeutic dose.

The committee pointed out that as the offences are ones of strict liability it had to find against him although the explanation that in completing the form, he had entered his average daily intake of two or three puffs of the Ventolin inhaler rather than that of a particularly difficult day, eight to 10 on the day of the All-Ireland final against Tyrone when he was suffering from flu, was accepted.

In this he benefited from the legal principle of lex mitior by which anyone accused of an offence is entitled to the application of a new law or provision if it treats him more leniently than the old provision. A new anti-doping rule, which came into force at the beginning of this year, states that where sports people can “establish how a specified substance entered his or her body or come into his or her possession and if such specified substance was not intended to enhance the athlete’s sporting performance or mask the use of performance enhancing substances, the period of ineligibility found in Article 10.1 shall be replaced with at a minimum a reprimand and no period of ineligibility and a maximum period of ineligibility of two years.”

To avail of this the participant must establish to the “comfortable satisfaction” of the hearing panel the absence of an intention to enhance performance or mask the use of a performance-enhancing drug.

This was applied to O’Mahony even though his test took place four months ago. Under the old rules he might have been liable for a suspension of a couple of months. He had already been cleared to continue playing with his club before Christmas pending the outcome of the hearing.

According to the committee they also bore in mind “that on a previous occasion the Irish Sports Council treated a finding of Salbutamol in excess of 1000 ng/mL in respect of Mr O’Mahony, as not being considered a violation of the rules”.

The outcome will have come as a relief to the GAA, whose first case of this nature it was. Not alone was the player in question exonerated but the structures for dealing with anti-doping have emerged from their first test to the satisfaction of all involved, including the Irish Sports Council.

It is, however, accepted that the process of education of players must continue and, according to Croke Park, there had been increased inquiries from medical advisers to county teams in the wake of O’Mahony’s test.

The issue of Salbutamol has been a controversial one in sport in recent years. On the one hand there is a belief that asthmatics must be allowed take medication necessary to compete but on the other side misgivings within Wada, the international anti-doping authority, that the numbers of athletes claiming to be asthmatics has increased dramatically.

According to Dr Joe Cumiskey, formerly medical officer to the Olympic Council of Ireland, at the time O’Mahony tested positive the reason for the prohibition is that in high doses the drug can be used to enhance performance.

“Salbutamol is a stimulant and used to dilate the bronchi in the airwaves. That’s its main use. If used in high doses it does have an anabolic effect . . . If there’s a presence over a certain level in the urine then it’s considered that it’s being used for anabolic effect and not for broncho-dilatory effects. There is a cut-off point.

“You can get a therapeutic use exemption for using the drug if you have established asthma and provided you register before you take the drug and not afterwards.”

ANTI-DOPING HEARINGS COMMITTEE:Adrian Colton (QC, Down), Seán McCague (former GAA president), Dr Pat O'Neill (sports medicine consultant).