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Sonia bashes Lombard

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

In an interview with the Sunday Tribune, O’Sullivan said she was moved to speak out after his actions and subsequent statements in an interview with the Irish Examiner had, in her view, cast a slur on all athletes. Lombard had claimed to have taken EPO so that could compete on an equal basis with the other athletes and that drug use in athletics had reached epidemic proportions.
“I’m very angry about this and I feel that I have to speak out because what he said is disgraceful,” O’Sullivan said. “I’ve never felt the need to dope in my career. I don’t know who it was who opened Cathal’s eyes, as he called it, but in all my years in athletics I’ve never been offered drugs.
“The problem is that people who don’t really know about athletics will read Cathal’s comments in the newspapers and think he must have a point. They’ll thing that people can’t run fast without cheating, just because Cathal Lombard said it. It’s a slur on the rest of us, those who didn’t take the shortcuts he did and who got where we did through talent and hard work.”
O’Sullivan also poured scorn on the notion that Lombard should be applauded for holding his hands up and admitting guilt.
“Honesty? That’s a joke,” she said. “It wasn’t like his conscience got to him and he decided to come clean. He got caught in the act and if he hadn’t been caught, he’d have carried on cheating. He took Athletics Ireland, the Irish Sports Council and the Olympic Council of Ireland for a ride. He went out, got a big profile for himself, enjoyed the sport of all these people, and it was just a trick all along. It was like a game to him. He won’t have any friends in the sport. No one will want him in their races. He could never have anyone’s trust again.”
Lombard’s two-year ban was imposed last Friday after he waived the right to an appeal.

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