Flood of support for banned O'Mahony

All-Star defender Aidan O'Mahony has been confirmed as the Kerry player who recently failed a drugs test following the Kingdom's All-Ireland final defeat to Tyrone.

The GAA revealed yesterday that a sample provided by one of its players, as part of the Irish Sports Council's Anti-Doping Programme, had shown an adverse analytical finding regarding the use of Salbutamol.

O'Mahony has been an asthma sufferer since birth and the likelihood is that he tested positive for the banned substance Salbutamol due to its presence in asthma-treating inhalers, such as the Ventolin and Salamol.

The 28-year-old Rathmore man will be the first player to appear before a GAA Anti-Doping tribunal. He has been provisionally suspended pending a hearing by an Anti-Doping Committee.

Kerry County Chairman Jerome Conway has been quick to back the player in the matter, pledging the support of the Kerry County Board, while the Gaelic Players Association (GPA) have also issued a statement of support.

Conway said: "We have no doubt that he is completely innocent and that he was taking the substance which he has always taken.

"We are certain that this test result has arisen because he suffers from asthma and uses this as a treatment. There is nothing sinister in this, this was an innocent occurence and a meeting will be scheduled for the player to prove that."

There are parallels with the case of Munster and Ireland hooker Frankie Sheahan who successfully appealed a two-year drugs ban - he tested positive for the same substance following Munster's 2003 Heineken Cup semi-final defeat to Toulouse.

"From what I have been told, it seems a similar case to mine," Sheahan told the Irish Examiner.

"I said at the time that unless the World Anti-Doping Agency published an unambiguous set of rules on Salbutamol, the permitted levels, and whether or not they believed it to be in any way performance-enhancing, then this situation was another accident waiting to happen.

"I'd be almost 100% sure that Aidan O'Mahony is just another innocent victim of guidelines that are confusing and inconsistent. I knew this would happen to some other asthma sufferer down the line."

Sheahan went to the courts to fight the ban and had it reduced to three months. It is understood that for his case, O'Mahony will have the help of Paul Derham, the Cork lawyer who assisted Sheahan in 2003.

"The bottom line is that, if you are not an asthmatic and you take Salbutamol, it is not performance-enhancing. It'll do nothing for you, save cause a tremor in your left hand," Sheahan added.