Australian Olympic hockey player arrested for allegedly buying cocaine

Australia's Tom Craig (left) battles Ireland's Lee Cole (right) for the ball during their hockey match at the 2024 Summer Olympics last week in Colombes, France. The Games were disappointing for Australia’s hockey team. Photo: AP/Anjum Naveed

Australian Olympic hockey player Tom Craig is in custody in Paris after allegedly trying to buy cocaine on the streets of the French capital on Tuesday night.

The identity of the player was not confirmed by the Australian Olympic Committee but it issued a statement on Wednesday morning regarding the arrest.

“The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) has confirmed an Australian hockey team member is in custody after being arrested in Paris on August 6,” a spokesperson said. “No charges have been laid. The AOC is continuing to make enquiries and arrange support for the team member.” 

The Paris public prosecutors office confirmed that police officers had witnessed a cocaine transaction in the ninth arrondissement of the city on Tuesday night, and arrested two men.

“Police officers … arrested the seller, born in December 2006, and the buyer, born in September 1995 in Australia and said to be a member of the Australian field hockey team,” a spokesperson said. “In view of the quantities of narcotics seized from the seller, the investigations were entrusted to the narcotics brigade. Both people are in police custody.” 

Craig, an experienced member of the team, was playing at his second Olympic Games after winning a silver medal at the Tokyo Games three years ago. The episode comes at the end of a disappointing Olympic campaign for both Australia’s hockey teams.

The Kookaburras lost 2-0 to Netherlands in their quarter-final on Sunday, after the men’s team came into the tournament with medal aspirations, while the Hockeyroos, the women’s team, went down to China 3-2 on Monday.

Under the rules in place for the Olympic Village in Tokyo, players were required to vacate their rooms within 48 hours of the completion of their competition. Both teams attended a post-tournament function on Tuesday.

Peter Bol

Meanwhile, Australian 800m runner Peter Bol will have to go through the repechage to avoid elimination in Paris, after finishing seventh in his first round heat on Wednesday. The Tokyo finalist took the opportunity after the race to defend himself against those who continue to question his record on drugs.

The 30-year-old was provisionally suspended in 2023 after returning an adverse analytical finding for synthetic EPO, a performance enhancing drug, but the ban was lifted shortly after his B sample returned an atypical finding. Yet his reputation was returned to the spotlight in May in a hearing before the Court of Arbitration for Sport relating to a separate athlete. 

Bol’s case was raised in a discussion about the effectiveness of testing, and Wada general counsel Ross Wenzel told the tribunal anti-doping authorities had discovered a screenshot on Bol’s phone, saved in September 2022, five weeks before the initial positive sample was collected, containing information about synthetic EPO use.

Bol addressed the screenshot with reporters for the first time after his heat. “I’m actually uncertain when they pulled that out and where they pulled it from,” he said.

“But, I mean, I read every article out there, and there’s probably a billion articles on [my phone]. I read a lot on crime, and they decided to pull out just the one that suited them, which is again, playing that political game," he said.

- Guardian