Nova Peris’ daughter Jessica to fight against steroid ban as lawyer compares case to Essendon 34
A lawyer for the daughter of Olympic gold medallist and former senator Nova Peris has compared the circumstances around Jessica Peris’ drug ban to that of the AFL’s darkest hour, the Essendon supplements saga.
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Sprinter Jessica Peris, the daughter of Olympic gold medallist and former senator Nova Peris, intends to continue fighting against a four-year ban for taking steroids.
Peris was forced to withdraw from the 2018 Commonwealth Games selection trials after a banned substance was detected in a sample taken by ASADA.
The drugs scandal rocked Australian athletics in the lead-up to the Gold Coast event but the full details of Peris’ cheating never came to light until now.
Peris, 30, took her case to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and the Court of Arbitration for Sport which was the reason behind the three-year delay.
It can now be revealed that Peris was tested during a training session at the Somerset College track in Brisbane on October 18, 2017.
The results came back positive to the anabolic steroids Exogenous Androsterone, Etiocholanolone and 5β-androstane-3a, 17 β-diol.
She also tested positive to Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), a hormone which converts in the body to testosterone.
Peris had been on track to follow in her famous mother’s footsteps after setting new 100m and 200m personal bests throughout 2017 which put her in the frame for Commonwealth Games selection.
She’d defeated rising star Riley Day and was in the mix for a relay stop in the Australian team before testing positive.
Peris is banned from competing until January 22, 2022 after losing her battle for an extension of time to fight the charges.
She had tried to argue she didn’t come under the ASADA umbrella as she wasn’t a registered member of an athletics organisation at the time of the out-of-competition testing.
Peris also claimed there were irregularities in the testing process.
She had sought legal aid to take her fight to the highest court in world sport in Switzerland but eventually abandoned it when she couldn’t afford the $14000 fee required to lodge an appeal.
Peris, a single mother, claimed she was “not being afforded natural justice, had been slandered internationally and could not afford to defend them” and that the two-year pursuit by ASADA had taken a terrible toll on her family.
She is now considering taking the matter to the Supreme Court, led by prominent sports lawyer Peter Jess, who compared her case to what happened with AFL team Essendon and its battle with ASADA.
“This is far from being over,” Jess said.
“There is a remarkable similarity between the dealings here with ASADA and what happened to the Essendon 34.”
She had returned to the track after enduring a dark time following her messy relationship break-up with NRL star Shaun Kenny-Dowall.
Domestic violence charges were levelled against the former Sydney Roosters centre in 2016 but were dismissed in court with Peris slammed as an unreliable witness.
The pair had endured a tumultuous relationship for just over 12 months with Kenny-Dowall accused of kicking, hair pulling, headbutting, stalking and intimidation.
But all 11 charges were dismissed with Peris described by Magistrate Gregory Grogin as a “calculating, evasive” witness who had “intentionally framed” her answers.
She had previously quit athletics after struggling with expectations surrounding her mother who won Olympic gold in hockey and Commonwealth Games gold on the track.
Nova Peris was the first indigenous Australian athlete to win an Olympic gold medal as part of the Hockeyroos at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
She then switched sports and won gold in the 200m and 4x100m relay at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur.
At the Sydney 2000 Olympics Peris made the semi-finals of the 400m and also ran in Australia’s 4x400m relay team which finished fifth.
She was elected to the Australian Senate at the 2013 federal election, after then Prime Minister Julia Gillard named her as a “captain’s pick”. Her brief stay in politics ended in 2016.
