In October 2020 United Kingdom Anti-Doping (UKAD) has reported an anti-doping rule violation against the rugby player Carl Hone after his sample tested positive for the prohibited substance Boldenone in a low concentration. The Athlete filed a statement in his defence and he was heard for the National Anti-Doping Panel.
The Athlete gave a prompt admission and denied the intentional use of the substance. He explained that the only possible source of the Boldenone was horse waste with which he must have come into contact when doing carpentry work at a barn adjacent to some stabling.
The London Lab confirmed that the concentration found in the Athlete's system was very low and it could no exclude the possibility of the Athlete's theory being correct.
UKAD contended that the Athlete failed to establish that the violation was not intentional on the balance of probability based on the contamination with horse waste theory.
The Panel considers it very unlikely that the Athlete as a low level amateur player had injected himself with the substance for performance enhancing. Nevertheless the Panel concludes that the Athlete had committed an anti-doping rule violation and that he failed to provide sufficient evidence that on the balance of probability horse waste was in fact the source of the prohibited substance in his system.
Therefore the National Anti-Doping Panel decides on 6 May 2021 to impose a 4 year period of ineligibility on the Athlete starting on the date of the sample collection, i.e. on 6 February 2020.
