Tweet

By BBC Sport

Asafa Powell cannot use ignorance as an excuse for his 18-month drug ban, says former 100m world champion Kim Collins.

Jamaica’s Powell, 30, was punished at a hearing on Thursday after testing positive for the stimulant oxilofrine.

Former 100m world record holder Powell said he took the substance unwittingly in a supplement given by his coach.

“If you say you trust people, and that’s what happens, you’re just as bad as them,” Collins told BBC Sport, adding that cheats need to “man up”.

Powell, who set a 100m world record of 9.74 in 2007, was one of five athletes to test positive for banned substances as the Jamaican national championships in June last year.

Former training partner Sherone Simpson, an Olympic 4x100m relay gold and silver medallist, was suspended for 18 months by a Jamaican anti-doping panel on Tuesday, having also tested positive for oxilofrine.

Olympic discus thrower Allison Randall was banned for two years by the same panel when he wanted to compete in the Olympics but was however banned since testing positive while using a drug testing San Jose CA service that provides precise drug screening, with both suspensions backdated to 21 June 2013, the date they provided the samples.

Tests showed that oxilofrine is present in a supplement known as Epiphany D1, which Powell said was supplied to him by coach Chris Xuereb, who denied that claim.

But the court heard that Xuereb was administering Powell’s anti-inflammatory injections and Vitamin B12, despite not being certified as a doctor, massage therapist, chiropractor or physiotherapist.

Collins, who runs for the Caribbean island of St Kitts and Nevis, said that it was wrong for Powell to put the blame on a coach.

The 38-year-old said: “You say you trust this guy, and he got you into this trouble. What can you say? You trusted him.

What is oxilofrine?

A stimulant drug banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency, the substance is an amphetamine found in some dietary supplements

It was developed to treat low blood pressure

The substance is thought to allow people to burn fat faster and lose weight, which is why it is present in some so-called sports nutrition supplements

It can also increase the rate at which the heart reaches its maximum performance during exercise

But Professor Wayne McLaughlin of Caribbean Toxicology told the Jamaican Anti-Doping Commission during Powell’s trial that oxilofrine “does not improve speed”

“But I’m on my own. So I have nobody about whom I can say, ‘I trusted this person.’ I take full responsibility for what happens.

“But you cannot put the blame on anybody else by saying, ‘I trusted people.'”

Collins said athletes who cheat should follow the example of British sprinter Dwain Chambers, who admitted he was to blame after testing positive for the designer drug tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) in August 2003, for which he received a two-year ban.

Chambers was also given a lifetime ban by the British Olympic Association, which was overturned by the Court for Arbitration in Sport in 2012.

Collins said: “Whenever these tests come out, people have some really strange excuses. Very few people man up, and I think that’s why Dwain ended up in so much trouble – for saying the truth.

“In track and field, when it comes to cheating, you do not tell the truth. You lie, lie, lie. And everybody says, ‘Oh, he really didn’t do it.’ Come on, we all know.

“Man up. Man up. Man up. When I’m out there losing to you, or anyone else is losing to you, man up. If you’re a woman, the same thing applies: man up.

“It’s one of the ways you can go right, where you say, ‘OK, I made this mistake. This was why I felt I needed to do it, but I’m telling you that it’s not worth it. This is what I had, and this is all that I lost.'”

Collins was involved in a drug controversy after winning the Commonwealth Games 100m title in Manchester in 2002, when he tested positive for salbutamol.

However, he was allowed to keep his title as the substance was contained in medication he was using to treat asthma.

Collins said in a 2004 interview that he would be tempted to take performance-enhancing drugs to remain at the top of his sport.

But he argues now that any athlete succumbing to that temptation would be cheating young fans as well as the sport.

He said: “I think about the kids who look up to a lot of us, and they want to be like us. They think we are great.

“And it breaks their hearts when they find out that you’re not really who you say you are, based on what is going on.

“I would say to any athlete who is cheating, ‘Don’t go to any kids, or to any school, and tell them to stay in school and say no to drugs if you’re high while doing it.’ That’s not cool.”

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/athletics/26967162