The Irish distance runner at the centre of a failed doping test is intending to accept his two-year suspension and give the reasons behind his use of a banned performance-enhancing substance, according to several athletic sources and the runner himself, writes Ian O'Riordan.
When contacted in Tirrenia in Italy yesterday evening, Cathal Lombard, when asked to comment on his intention to admit the use of EPO, replied: "It's something I'll do in my own time. But I just don't want to say anything further about it, just not at the moment. This is not a trial by media. But you will get a full statement on my return home. Right now I don't want to say anything more about it."
Lombard (28) was informed on Saturday that a recent out-of-competition doping test had revealed traces of the substance erythropoietin (EPO), one of the more widely abused drugs in endurance sports.
The Cork athlete is due to travel home from Tirrenia later today, where he had been completing his preparations for the Athens Olympics. As a result of the positive test, however, he is now certain to be pulled from the Irish team and the 10,000 metres event, in which he was due to compete next Friday week.
Lombard has agreed to meet officials from Athletics Ireland tomorrow to answer formally the charge of his failed drugs test, which was carried out in Switzerland last month while the athlete was training at St Moritz.
Lombard had attracted some suspicion within Irish athletics circles after his dramatic improvements in the 5,000 metres and 10,000 metres in the past two summers. Before 2003, for example, his 10,000 metres best was 30 minutes 35.96 seconds. Last April, in his first track run of the season, he ran 27:33.53, knocking 13 seconds off Mark Carroll's four-year-old Irish record.
Lombard put that improvement down to a streamlined and more effective system of training. The qualified solicitor, who up until last year worked for the Arthur Cox firm in Dublin, has been a full-time athlete since last September and has trained in the US, South Africa, Switzerland and, more recently, in Italy.
He also attributed his newfound success to the coaching methods of Cavan schoolteacher Mr Joe Doonan, who according to several sources yesterday had no inkling of Lombard's apparent use of EPO. Mr Doonan could not be contacted last night.Neither the Irish Sports Council nor Athletics Ireland was yesterday in a position to offer specific comment on Lombard's case.
However, in a further development last night, Athletics Ireland media spokesman Mr Pierce O'Callaghan called for a public inquiry into the Lombard case to help clarify the exact nature of the problem of possible drug use in Irish sport.
"As a coach myself I think the public deserve to know what exactly went on in this particular case. I think we need to know who, where and what exactly was involved to make sure it doesn't happen again..."