Customs alerted council on Lombard's EPO use

Tip-offs from Irish Customs and the Irish Medicines Board may have alerted the Irish Sports Council to disgraced Cork athlete Cathal Lombard’s use of the performance-enhancing drug EPO.

It emerged today that both organisations may have passed on information to the Irish Sports Council (ISC) about a delivery that was made to the 28-year-old Cork runner.

It also emerged that the ISC were practically ‘parked in his driveway’ as the investigation was underway into suspicions that the athlete was using a banned substance.

ISC chief executive John Treacy told the Evening Echo today: “We’ve all but parked in his driveway – we tested him in Cork, in the US, in Switzerland, so we were keeping a very keen eye on him. We carried out seven tests in the course of the year.”

Mr Lombard, originally from Midleton, once one of Ireland’s Olympic hopefuls, was tested at the request of the ISC as he trained in Switzerland on July 11. His urine sample showed traces of EPO, a drug which is difficult to detect as there is only a two or three-day window where it will show up in an athlete’s system.

He had been tested seven times at the ISC’s request in 12 months — that is six times more than some other Olympic hopefuls.

It now seems inevitable that the athlete will be slapped with an automatic two-year suspension by the ISC and an interim suspension may be issued by the Athletic Association of Ireland (AAI) today.

John Treacy said today that he was glad the abuse had been detected at this stage.

“He has won nothing of any significance and he didn’t get to compete in the Olympic games,” Mr Treacy said.

Athletics commentators now say that the runner’s career is over.