ASADA accused of hypocrisy after former Gold Coast star Nathan Bock cleared of doping

ASADA has cleared former Gold Coast star Nathan Bock of doping, saying “suspicion is not enough” for the anti-doping body to continue its investigation.

Nathan Bock in action during the Suns V GWS NEAFL game at Metricon Stadium, Gold Coast. Pics Adam Head

FORMER Gold Coast Suns star Nathan Bock has been cleared of doping - five and a half years after allegedly injecting himself with the banned peptide CJC-1295.

The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority confirmed on Friday its investigations into Bock had ceased and he was free to continue coaching the Southport Sharks in the NEAFL.

James Hird’s lawyer, Steven Amendola, subsequently slammed the decision as “bare-faced hypocrisy”.

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Asked about the progress of the Bock investigation, an ASADA spokesperson told the Herald Sun: “In the absence of a positive blood or urine test, ASADA must be satisfied that sufficient evidence exists to sustain a charge against an athlete.

“Suspicion is not enough.

“Allegations against AFL players are heard in the first instance by the AFL tribunal.

Nathan Bock coaching Southport in the NEAFL. Picture: JERAD WILLIAMS

“We note the AFL tribunal was not comfortably satisfied that (sports scientist) Stephen Dank had trafficked CJC-1295 to the Gold Coast in 2010. The tribunal was comfortably satisfied that Mr Dank had attempted to traffic CJC-1295 to the Gold Coast Suns in 2010.

“Further we note the tribunal was not comfortably satisfied that the substance believed by Mr Dank to be CJC-1295 was in fact the prohibited substance CJC-1295.

“ASADA has chosen not to appeal those grounds. Despite extensive investigations, the evidence supporting those allegations was not significant enough to warrant appeal, and certainly not nearly as compelling as other matters ASADA has appealed.”

Leaked transcripts from last year’s AFL tribunal hearings revealed former Gold Coast and Essendon high-performance boss Dean Robinson suggested to Bock that he should tell a hospital pharmacy that he needed to buy syringes for his girlfriend — rather than admit that they were for him to inject substances into himself.

Robinson told ASADA Bock visited his Gold Coast home where he gave him the drug in a green cooler bag packed with dry ice in late 2010. Robinson claimed Dank had told him the drug was not banned and would help Bock with an Achilles injury.

Dank worked at the Suns from November 2010 to February 2011, but few at the club have discussed his time there or acknowledged who hired him.

James Hird arrives at the Supreme Court in Melbourne. Picture: Tony Gough

Dank and Robinson reunited at Essendon several months later to engineer the supplements program that triggered Australian sport’s greatest scandal.

Travis Auld, chief executive of the Suns at the time of Dank’s employment at the club, has since joined the AFL as one of league chief executive Gillon McLachlan’s deputies.

A 2013 AFL audit cleared the Gold Coast of any governance breaches.

Amendola, Hird’s lawyer in the drugs fight since April 2013, said: “The AFL anti-doping tribunal wasn’t even satisfied that Thymosin beta-4 left China and arrived in Australia, but it didn’t stop ASADA from encouraging and funding WADA to appeal that.

“This explanation regarding Bock should be a new entry into Don Watson’s dictionary of Weasel Words. I hope people see the bare-faced hypocrisy of ASADA.”

The AFL’s anti-doping tribunal last year found Dank guilty of breaching the league’s drugs policy by attempting to traffic CJC-1295 to the Suns.

CJC-1295 was the drug at the centre of ASADA’s investigations into NRL club Cronulla, which led to players being suspended.

Bock played just 27 games for the Suns after defecting from Adelaide at the end of the 2010 season.

Originally published as ASADA accused of hypocrisy after former Gold Coast star Nathan Bock cleared of doping