Peter Bol's lawyer slams independent testers for ‘catastrophic blunder’ during EPO examinations
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The lawyer for Australian athlete Peter Bol has claimed that independent tests confirmed that the runner never tested positive for the performance-enhancing drug EPO.
The 29-year-old was suspended back in January after an A-sample he took returned high levels of erythropoietin (EPO).
His B-sample then returned an atypical result meaning it was neither positive nor negative.
Bol’s lawyer, Paul Greene, appeared Nine’s Today to slam the investigation as a ‘sham’ and called on Sport Integrity Australia to drop the case.
He said: “My primary goal right now is to get them to publicly admit what is obvious.
"If anyone looks at those reports, we have two of the most world-class analytical chemists in the world look at his results and say this wasn't even a close call. These were just negative tests.
"These WADA labs .... they don't have the expertise to understand this particular test.
"It's not a straightforward analysis, it isn't like a normal exam or test or looking at a urine substance where it is clearly in there and it's synthetic."
Greene claimed that his client’s name had been unfairly damaged as a result of the false allegations.
He continued: “This is a subjective analysis and they just couldn't get it right.
"They had no idea what they were doing. And the worst part of it now is, one, it was announced first of all, which never should have been. I begged them not to announce it.
"Two, now they just ... obviously are wrong, they are refusing to drop this sham investigation. They have absolutely no evidence at all at this point as to any wrongdoing."
The legal team of Bol sent off a letter to the SIA demanding that the investigation be brought to an end.
Greene claimed in the error that ‘catastrophic errors’ had been made in Mr Bol’s case.
Greened added: “There is nothing to investigate. They have no evidence.
"There is no urine sample positive. There is no evidence he took anything in his urine. It's 100 per cent negative. There was nothing on his phone. There is nothing on his computer.
"There's absolutely zero evidence. They just need to say, we have no evidence, we messed this up. This was a mistake."
In an interview with The Age, Bol claimed that the independent tests confirmed his innocence.
He said: “I wasn’t guilty, waiting for a miracle — I was innocent and waiting for it to be proved. I knew it would come. The people who analysed it had no idea who I was, and it shows in detail how [ASDTL] messed up.
“I want them to acknowledge that. I don’t want to fight, but I don’t want to go quietly either. We want to improve the whole sport.
“You can’t have innocent athletes getting done for something they’ve never used.”
Bol broke two national records in qualifying to reach the men’s 800m final at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
SPORTbible has reached out to Sports Integrity Australia for comment.
