Six gamers from Georgia’s rugby staff have been handed lengthy bans – together with one for 11 years – for his or her involvement in a urine-swapping scheme to cheat anti-doping assessments in one of many sport’s greatest corruption scandals.
The case was described by World Rugby on Tuesday as “essentially the most in depth anti-doping investigation ever undertaken in rugby”.
Former captain Merab Sharikadze was given the 11-year ban, whereas Giorgi Chkoidze was banned for six years, and Lasha Khmaladze, Otar Lashkhi and Miriani Modebadze acquired three-year suspensions. Lasha Lomidze was banned for 9 months.
Nutsa Shamatava, the nationwide staff’s physician, was banned for 9 years for her position within the scandal, the place she offered advance discover of upcoming out-of-competition doping controls to gamers in group chats.
World Rugby mentioned it found irregularities in urine samples within the run-up to the boys’s Rugby World Cup in France in 2023 and alerted the World Anti-Doping Company.
Their joint investigation discovered the six gamers “engaged in swapping of urine samples to keep away from the chance of testing optimistic for substances that they believed have been prohibited, the previous males’s first staff physician offered advance discover of testing and different members of workers arguably have been or should be have been conscious that such advance discover was offered”.
World Rugby mentioned the investigation revealed no proof that the urine samples have been substituted to hide the usage of performance-enhancing substances.
As an alternative, the governing physique mentioned there was “credible proof” to help assertions by the six gamers that they hid hashish and a painkiller, tramadol.
The Georgia Rugby Union accepted a misconduct cost, World Rugby added, and agreed to an undisclosed monetary penalty and to implement “a roadmap of varied reforms and measures in its anti-doping coaching and training to mitigate the chance of any future problems with this nature arising”.
