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Aidan O'Mahony: "I'm totally for drug testing in the GAA but this dragged out for six months"

Back in 2009, former Kerry All Ireland winner Aidan O'Mahony was cleared by a doping panel after ...
Newstalk
Newstalk

17.30 27 Apr 2018


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Aidan O'Mahony: &#...

Aidan O'Mahony: "I'm totally for drug testing in the GAA but this dragged out for six months"

Newstalk
Newstalk

17.30 27 Apr 2018


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Back in 2009, former Kerry All Ireland winner Aidan O'Mahony was cleared by a doping panel after the GAA's anti-doping committee found that the levels of Salbutamol in his system were "consistent with the inhalation of the substance" for medical use.

The two-time All Star suffers from chronic asthma - Salbutamol inhalers are used to treat the condition - and as a result was not given a suspension.

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Aidan O'Mahony: "I'm totally for drug testing in the GAA but this dragged out for six months"

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O'Mahony joined Ger on Off The Ball tonight and during the in-depth chat about his career including his Dancing With The Stars exploits, he reflected on the difficult period as he waited for his name to be cleared. 

"The way it came out, that was my biggest disappointment. The way it came out was plastered in front of the papers: 'O'Mahony fails drug test'. There's nothing about an inhaler in it because it obviously wouldn't sell the story," he said.

"A lot of the stories that came out never covered the whole inhaler thing. It was just 'O'Mahony fails drug test' in front of a paper."  

The biggest frustration was how long the whole process took before his name was cleared.

"I'm totally for the drug testing in the GAA but this was dragged out for six months," O'Mahony, who retired in 2017, recalled.

"There was a process. I remember sitting above at these things and coming up from Kerry and paying €50 for a room to get changed and for myself to go in.

"Next, there's this whole confab going on about this regulation, that regulation. Everything was going over my head and I'm a guard like and I know laws and stuff like that." 


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