Jesse Ryder suspended from cricket for six months after failed drug test

Jesse Ryder failed a drug test after a match for the Wellington Firebirds in March. Photograph: Gurinder Osan/AP

The New Zealand batsman Jesse Ryder has been suspended for six months after failing a doping test for banned stimulants he claimed he took in a supplement to help him lose weight.
Ryder returned a positive sample after being tested following a match for the provincial side Wellington Firebirds against Northern Knights on 24 March, the country's Sports Tribunal said in a statement on its website.
Ryder tested positive to 1-phenylbutan-2-amine (PBA) and N-alphadiethyl-benzeneethanamine (DEBEA), both of which are banned in competition, and was subsequently handed a six-month provisional ban on 19 April.
"I'm pretty gutted by all this," Ryder said on Tuesday. "After doing the research and finding out there's no banned substances in it, it's disappointing having to go through all this and knowing that I failed a drug test."
Explaining why he took the supplement, he said: "It was just to control my weight. It did fluctuate quite a bit throughout the season and I wasn't training as much, maybe not looking after myself as well, so I thought it'd be a good time to get on top of it.
"It's been a public issue for quite a while, my weight, it's something I'm always trying to sort out. I didn't really notice much of a difference at all, I only used them a handful of times.
"It's difficult to have done that research and to find out that it had been a contaminated batch. There's not much else I could have done."
The tribunal issued a decision on Monday saying that it accepted Ryder's reasons for taking supplements and upheld the provisional ban, meaning the ban would be lifted on 19 October.
"The mandatory penalty for this violation is two years' suspension," the tribunal said. "However, the suspension can be less if the athlete establishes how the prohibited substances got in his system and that the taking of the prohibited substance was not intended to enhance his sport performance."
The tribunal added in its decision's notes: "We do not need to detail Mr Ryder's evidence other than to say in summary that he expressed a sensitivity arising from public comments about his weight and, as he was in a good space at the time about his cricketing form, he had decided to make a further attempt to reduce weight."
New Zealand's top anti-doping authority Drug Free Sport NZ said it had accepted the tribunal's conclusion that the Test batsman was not intending to enhance performance but added that he "had failed to heed clear warnings he had received".
"This is doubly disappointing as DFSNZ, NZ Cricket and the Cricket Players' Association had collaborated to institute an education programme for first-class cricketers and Ryder had been part of that programme," Graeme Steel of Drug Free Sport said in a statement on its website.
"Supplements are a minefield for athletes as, while benefits are invariably overstated, accurate information about contents and their status under sport rules is frequently insufficient."
The leniency of the decision and the lack of disclosure are likely to raise eyebrows in New Zealand, where Ryder's travails have been a constant source of controversy. A burly left-hander who stepped away from Test cricket last year to deal with personal issues, Ryder has struggled with weight problems throughout his career, along with alcohol and discipline issues.
Four days after being tested following his match for Wellington, Ryder was subject to a vicious assault outside a Christchurch nightspot which put him in hospital with critical head injuries.