‘Catastrophic blunder’: Independent testing reveals Peter Bol did not use EPO

Two independent laboratories have cleared Australian runner Peter Bol of ever using the banned substance EPO in a development his US-based lawyer Paul Greene has described as a “catastrophic blunder” from Sports Integrity Australia.

Bol’s legal team last week sent a letter to the sports integrity body, demanding an end to the investigation.

Australian 800m runner Peter Bol wants Sports Integrity Australia to learn from his case.Credit: Scott McNaughton

The letter includes claims the expert analysis of the 800-metre runner’s urine sample from October last year “never showed the presence of any synthetic EPO” and that “inexperience and incompetence at the Australian Sports Drug Testing Laboratory (ASDTL) led to an incorrect determination” of his positive A-sample.

In a lengthy interview with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age at his home in Melbourne, Bol said the tests confirmed what he knew all along.

“That I’m innocent,” he said. “I wasn’t guilty, waiting for a miracle – I was innocent and waiting for it to be proved. I knew it would come. The people who analysed it had no idea who I was, and it shows in detail how [ASDTL] messed up. I want them to acknowledge that. I don’t want to fight, but I don’t want to go quietly either. We want to improve the whole sport. You can’t have innocent athletes getting done for something they’ve never used.”

Bol became a household name at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 after breaking two national records in qualifying to reach the men’s 800m final, in which he finished fourth.

The reigning Australian champion and record-holder was suspended in January after his A-sample indicated high levels of EPO. The result was leaked to the media and later confirmed in an Athletics Australia statement days before he was expected to be named Young Australian of the Year.

Bol was allowed to return to the track a month later after the B-sample tested by the World Anti-Doping Authority (WADA) returned an atypical result, which means it was neither negative nor positive.

Erythropoietin – better known as EPO – is a naturally occurring hormone produced by the kidneys but, in synthetic form (referred to as rEPO), can turbocharge performance and aid recovery by increasing an athlete’s red-blood-cell count.

Greene said the independent testing cast Bol’s innocence in a new light.

“Sport Integrity Australia has an affirmative duty to publicly acknowledge the catastrophic blunders that have been made in Mr Bol’s case and immediately exonerate him since the rules mandate that anti-doping authorities like Sport Integrity Australia be held to the same strict standards as athletes,” Greene wrote.

SIA and the ASDTL had no comment when contacted on Tuesday afternoon.

There is an ongoing debate about the best method to test for EPO.

The SAR-Page gel test, used by the drug testing laboratory to determine Bol’s A-sample result, measures EPO levels across five bands. Isoelectric focusing (IEF) was used by WADA to determine the atypical finding in his B-sample. The ASDTL is an independent laboratory used by Sports Integrity Australia for its investigations.

Bol on the podium after winning the silver medal in the Men’s 800 metres at the Commonwealth Games in 2022.Credit: AP

As reported by the Herald and The Age last month, Norwegian professors Jon Nissen-Meyer, Tore Skotland, Erik Boye and Bjarne Osterud have been long-term critics of EPO testing by some WADA-sanctioned laboratories because they are too reliant on the subjective interpretation of results.

Those four professors concluded Bol’s tests indicated “a large amount of natural EPO in his sample”.

A second analysis, from Dr David Chen at the University of British Columbia, was more damning of SIA’s findings. “The numbers showed absolutely no evidence for the presence of any rEPO in the two samples tested,” Chen said in his report. “Only naturally occurring endogenous erythropoietin was observed.”

Chen said Bol’s A-sample was incorrectly found to be positive after misreading the SAR-Page method. After examining Bol’s urine sample, he concluded that the IEF-Page test would have found a negative result.

‘I want SIA to see this as an opportunity to improve. Not to see it as me trying to fight them.’

Peter Bol

“I found that all the data as presented in the two reports showed negative results for recombinant erythropoietin (rEPO),” he wrote. “The gel images are distorted, making some of the protein spots appear to have larger molecular weights than the identical protein standards run on a separate lane.”

Chen was engaged as an independent expert by Elite Medical Experts, which conducted the analysis of Bol’s samples for Greene’s firm Global Sports Advocates, although Chen did not know the identity of the athlete. Greene said the Norwegian professors did not accept any remuneration for their services.

Despite having his ban lifted in February, Bol will not compete at the Australian Track and Field Championships in Brisbane, starting on Monday. He is likely to return at a Diamond League meet in Morocco in May.

He said he does not intend to sue SIA for damages, even though his legal costs are more than $50,000.

“But I want SIA to see this as an opportunity to improve,” he said. “Not to see it as me trying to fight them. We’ve been transparent the whole time. They should be the same. What my family has gone through should never happen, but it did happen, and we want people to be held accountable … We’re not here to say we’re angry. We want to understand why people did it. That is the least they can do.”

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