Insight: Shayna Jack explains why she reached out to Peter Bol during his fight to clear his name and their shared ‘duty’ to speak up

As Peter Bol proclaimed his innocence after being provisionally suspended following a failed drug test, Shayna Jack wasted no time reaching out. She knew what he was going through.

Star swimmer Shayna Jack has revealed she reached out to Peter Bol during his drugs case, understanding exactly the battle he was facing to clear his name.

Jack, guest editor of Sunday’s Code Insight mental health issue, said she and Bol now shared a “duty” to speak up about the enormous difficulties involved in challenging a system in which the onus was on the athlete to prove that they were innocent to try and ensure no one else was forced to endure the personal toll the pair had to pay to clear their names.

Shayna Jack quickly reached out to Peter Bol during his drugs case. Picture: Getty Images

Jack waged a two-year campaign to clear her name after what a court was told was a “pharmacologically irrelevant dose” of the prohibited substance ligandrol was detected in her sample following a random test ahead of the 2019 world championships.

She eventually served a two-year ban – the regular four-year suspension halved on appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) – despite an 11th hour appeal from Sport Integrity Australia (SIA) and the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) which made her go through the CAS process for a second time.

Peter Bol returned a false-positive test result. Picture: Getty Images

As Jack shares in her Insight editorial, the process not only of attempting to clear her name but battling integrity and testing authorities that seemed to show no regard for her as a person, would “test me and my resilience and my mental strength more than anything in my life before” and leave her battling the trauma of the events to this day.

When news was leaked of Bol’s positive test to erythropoietin (EPO) in January, Jack was one of the few people who knew exactly what he was going through as he proclaimed his innocence but was provisionally suspended.

Bol’s ban was lifted a month later when his B sample came back “inconclusive” but SIA continued to investigate before eventually conceding he’d received a false positive and WADA agreeing to review the EPO testing process.

“I did reach out to him and basically just offer my support and explained to him that it’s our duty in a way to now speak publicly and help each other and actually make people aware of the process (of attempting to clear your name),” Jack said of her Instagram messages with the athletics champion.

Jack said SIA’s relentless pursuit of her case even when CAS had found in her favour and its decision to investigate Bol’s situation even after his B same proved inconclusive showed the human toll of investigations in which modern testing techniques were picking up smaller and smaller traces of substances that did not necessarily point to cheating.

“I didn’t think that I could be more broken at that point until I got that email saying we’re going to court again,” Jack said of finding out SIA and WADA would appeal CAS’s decision.

“I had to start the process again. I had to pay more money which I did not have.

Shayna Jack shares her powerful story in this month’s edition of Insight – out Sunday.

Read Shayna Jack’s column on Sunday.

“I felt like no matter what, I couldn’t win. No matter what I did, no matter how hard I fought for myself, these people just weren’t going to let me win.

“They’d already decided my fate, so what could I do?

“And that’s what I feel every time I see someone else have to go through something like this and when Peter Bol (initially tested positive), l just thought: ‘I hope they’ve learnt. I hope the media, I hope people, I hope this system, has learnt from what they did to me’.”

Jack said having both been through what was initially an unfamiliar process to them, she and Bol now had an obligation to help other athletes who may find themselves in a similar predicament.

“Now Peter Bol and I have an insight into it where we can actually go and help people if something like this happens to them.

“What are your plans? What can you do? If you claim that you’re innocent, how do we help you prove it?

“Because in the end, if you’re innocent, you can’t prove it – it’s just not possible. In that system, you are basically more guilty the whole time than you’ll ever be innocent.”

Originally published as Insight: Shayna Jack explains why she reached out to Peter Bol during his fight to clear his name and their shared ‘duty’ to speak up