Peter Bol on the news that turned his life upside down and fight to clear his name and reputation

Peter Bol says he was left completely confused by news that he had tested positive for EPO and opens up on his relief of the news becoming public as he fights to clear his name.

Peter Bol is vowing to clear his name. Picture: Michael Klein

When Peter Bol heard the knock on the door, he knew exactly who it was at 8am on a Tuesday.

Part of life as an international athlete was the whereabouts program which involved having to log in every day to keep a diary of your movements for drug testers.

This was a regular testing window so he wasn’t surprised when he opened the door to find two Sport Integrity Australia officers.

“What are you guys doing today?” Bol asked as he motioned for them to come inside his Burnley apartment. “Urine or blood?”

Bol has had dozens of tests over his decade in track and field so such visits aren’t even given a second thought which is why he wasn’t expecting what happened next.

The testers weren’t there to test, they instead handed him a bunch of papers which they informed him were copies of a laboratory report of a failed drug test. He’d tested positive to EPO.

Bol can’t remember much else about what was said. “I was just in complete shock and completely confused,” he recalls.

He immediately grabbed his mobile phone and rang his coach Justin Rinaldi and agent James Templeton. His world was crashing around him.

Bol says the failed test turned his world upside down. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nicki Connolly

Australia’s greatest ever 800m runner says he has never taken drugs, had never even thought about it so how was there EPO found in an out-of-competition urine test taken on October 11 last year while he was staying in Perth with his family.

The drug testers asked if he was willing to hand over his mobile phone, iPad and laptop as part of their investigation. If he’d bought drugs or ordered them, there would be an electronic footprint.

Bol didn’t hesitate. He had nothing to hide. “Take them,” he said.

That was January 10. Ten days later Athletics Australia released a statement revealing the Tokyo Olympic hero had failed a drug test. He then followed that up with a statement on his social media.

“That was almost a relief because a lot of people didn’t know,” Bol says. “My family didn’t know and you are kind of holding it all in. People were starting to ask questions about why I wasn’t at training and I didn’t want to lie to them so that was really hard.”

For the first six days he’d trained and there were times during particularly hard sessions where it helped take his mind off everything but then it became too hard as he started having trouble sleeping.

He has mainly stayed home since and played a lot of PlayStation to try and take his mind off things.

Bol says he has been fully cooperative with the investigation in order to clear his name. Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

“Just going through all the emotions, you’re up and down,” he says. “You have a good day and feel on top of it so you try to train but it soon becomes way too hard to keep training.

“You keep waking up and then trying to switch your mind off, then waking up again.”

In those 10 days Bol has had a lot of time to think about his life. He knows more about EPO than he did before and how it has to be injected into the body which is why he is so confused with the result of the test.

“I absolutely have no idea (how it happened),” Bol declares. “I know for sure I have never done any needles or injected anything, not even thought about taking performance enhancing drugs let alone injecting it.

“If it was something like a protein (irregularity) then you can go back and try and think about a protein shake you had at a cafe. My understanding is that it (EPO) is pretty hard to get and that you do it through a syringe which is just outrageous.”

He has asked for the B sample of the original test to be analysed which is likely to take at least a month. His hope is that it comes back negative which would exonerate him immediately.

False-positives have happened previously in rare cases and given his EPO reading was borderline there is a sense it could be naturally occurring EPO, just at a high level.

Bol, 28, knows his career is on the line but he is also aware that a lot of damage to his reputation has already been done.

Australia’s greatest 800m runner knows that even if his B sample comes back negative, there will be some who will still doubt him forever. Picture: Josie Hayden

“I think the worst part is regardless of the B result there are always going to be people that are not going to believe you,” he says.

“Your integrity is on the line which is hard because there are so many people you have impacted over the last few years and it is tough to accept that.

“There is always going to be a question mark (over my achievements), which is crazy as we don’t need drugs to perform, we never needed it, never thought about it, our training has always been transparent.”

On Monday he was scheduled to fly to Canberra ahead of the Young Australian of the Year announcement which he was favourite to win after receiving Western Australia’s nomination for his work as a coach, mentor, keynote speaker plus his philanthropic efforts.

That won’t happen now and he knows this cloud which now hangs over him will impact his off-the-track efforts.

“That really hurts as over the last few years I have done so much work, not just for kids but I’ve done so many speaking engagements,” he says. “The crazy thing is, recently in Perth I did a talk about integrity, you can imagine that crowd right now they’d be like ‘Whoa’.

“It impacts so many people for sure. I have been really good the last few years setting up more things outside of the sport, doing a lot of community work and playing around with different things to see what I would do after sport.

As painful as the hit to his reputation is, Bol is just as worried about the impact this news will have on his work within the community. Picture: Carmen Mandato/Getty Images

“Working with disadvantaged youth was always one of my passions but I guess that is now also going to have a question mark as my integrity is on the line.”

He is also facing financial ruin. Bol has three major sponsors apparel giant Adidas, watchmaker Longines and Voost multi-vitamins who for the moment are standing by him but that will change should the B sample come back positive.

Late last year he bought a four-bedroom house in Perth near the beach to secure his future but it’s likely he would have to sell it to fight to clear his name.

Bol is going to need financial help given the reality of the system is that it could take over a year to get a ruling with multiple hearings and significant legal costs.

“I didn’t do anything wrong, I will stand by my answer, it will never change,” he says. “That gives me a little bit of peace.”

The Olympian could also face financial concerns if he has to take his fight further in the legal system to clear his name. Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

On the track he has unfinished business. His fourth at the Tokyo Olympic Games proved he was world class and he backed that up with a silver medal at last year’s Birmingham Commonwealth Games.

All his attention was focused on the 2024 Paris Olympic Games but now he’s just trying to get through one day at a time.

He’s currently provisionally suspended, the worst case scenario with an EPO charge is a four-year ban with the possibility of a reduction on appeal.

“I always thought I would retire on my own terms,” Bol says. “If it is not on your own terms, then injury or something … but not like this.”