Sport Ireland ‘harassing me’, claims Ciarán Ó Lionáird

Ciarán Ó Lionáird has hit out at Sport Ireland’s approach to anti-doping after they attempted to test him at his home in Portland, Oregon, yesterday, despite the Cork athlete being retired from the sport.

Ó Lionáird, a European indoor medallist over 3000m in 2013, has not trained in several months — something he notified Sport Ireland of via email — but woke up yesterday morning to a series of missed calls from a doping control officer looking to conduct a test.

He returned the calls but was informed that because they had been unable to gain access to his apartment block, it would constitute a missed test.