Jesse Patton PHOTO
07.07.2020

Rugby Player Blames Steroid Positive on Chlamydia Treatment

Welsh Rugby Union Player reported that he was self-medicating a suspected sexually transmitted infection.

Jesse Patton, a Welsh Rugby Union Player employed by the Ystalyfera Rugby Football Club, recently tested positive for five metabolites of the prohibited anabolic steroid methandienone. Methandienone is best known by its original tradename “Dianabol”.

The Dianabol positive was detected in an out-of-competition urine sample collected after a training practice on September 24, 2019.

The Welsh rugby player insisted that he never intentionally used a prohibited performance-enhancing drug.

Patton maintained that he never knowingly used Dianabol. He assumed the failed drug test may have been the result of ingesting a contaminated dietary supplement or other product. Patton exhaustively reviewed all of the products that he consumed prior to the sample collection date.

Patton concluded that the culprit was a medication that he used to treat a possible case of the sexually-transmitted infection Chlamydia or perhaps Thrush. Patton admitted that he did not obtain the medication from a medical professional. Instead, the rugby player asked his friend to provide treatment for his STI.

“I had caught a sexual disease off a woman I had been dating, I was embarrassed to go to the doctor and I assume it was either “thrush” or “Chlamydia”. I confided in one of my friends and he told me he had medication to help clear it which he had bought online, he then gave me a few tablets and he told me to take them for the next 5 days to clear it. I thought nothing of it, my irritations had healed and I felt much better.”

Patton reportedly received tablets containing the antifungal medication fluconazole as the active ingredient. Unfortunately, Patton was unable to provide any evidence to prove that the medication was contaminated with Methandienone.

Patton asserted that Methandienone was commonly “labelled under the medical umbrella ‘Fluconazole’”.

UK Anti-Doping medical expert Professor David Cowan testified that Methandienone and Fluconazole were distinct pharmaceutical compounds with a fundamentally different chemical structure. Cowan also refuted the baseless claim that Methandienone was often referred to under the umbrella term of Fluconazole.

UKAD rejected Patton’s explanation of how the Methandienone metabolites ended up in his body. Patton’s argument for “no significant fault or negligence” was not supported.

UKAD recording the Dianabol positive as an Anti-Doping Rule Violation (ADRV). Patton was suspended from all sport competition for a period of four years. Patton will be eligible to return to competition on September 25, 2023.

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