Jamie Heaslip has revealed for the first time that he failed a regulation doping test in the summer of 2006.

The Ireland No 8 was only 22 and returning home from Dublin airport to start his first full season with Leinster when he opened a letter from the Irish Sports Council informing him of the negative finding.

“My world suddenly collapsed,” he told The Sunday Times in an exclusive interview. “I turned to my dad, ‘They’re saying I failed a test.’ He said, ‘What?’ I told him again. He found the nearest place to pull in.

“My dad’s a straight shooter and he looked at me and said, ‘Did you take anything?’ ‘No, I replied, ‘I didn’t take anything.’ He asked me if I’d done anything on a night out with the lads. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I didn’t.’

“Heaslip’s testosterone level was above the stipulated 4:1 testosterone to epitestosterone ratio. His previous tests were also found to contain consistently high levels of natural testosterone, a physiological anomaly confirmed by further testing. “I honestly feel it (high testosterone levels) has played its part in keeping me fit,” Heaslip says. “I’ve always recovered quickly and another small advantage, I rarely get hangovers.”

The Sunday Times,

February 2, 2014

Five years ago, on a Wednesday afternoon in January 2014, Jamie Heaslip came bounding up the stairs of the Westbury Hotel in Dublin for an interview with The Sunday Times. It was four days before the start of his seventh Six Nations Championship and he had agreed to meet David Walsh to chat about his life and the game.

Walsh admired the Ireland No 8 and was fascinated by his durability: one of just three players to have started five of the previous six Lions Tests (no one had started all six), Heaslip was a Grand Slam hero and had won three European Cups. "He was one player who never got injured," Walsh recalls, "and I think that’s what prompted the question: How do you explain this?"

The answer was a remarkable headline and an unexpected scoop: 'Heaslip: High Testosterone could have ruined my career'.

It was the first time Heaslip had told the story and the surprise of All In, his just-published autobiography, is his haste to tell it again. One moment (page 15) he’s picking up a ball and playing underage rugby in Naas and the next (page 27) he’s testing positive for testosterone on his debut for Ireland A.

"My professional career could have been ended as soon as it had started, before I’d even worn my first cap for Ireland," he writes. "In early August 2006, at the end of my first full season with the Leinster team, where I started 26 games, I was notified there was an issue with a potentially failed drugs test.

"A letter from the Irish Sports Council (now Sport Ireland) started what was probably the scariest, if thankfully brief, period of my life. It began: 'Dear Mr Heaslip, this is to inform you of a negative finding following the testing of your A-sample . . ."

He told all this to Walsh? Sure, but the devil is in the detail and his description of how this adverse finding for testosterone was explained.

The month is July, 2005. Heaslip has played three games for Ireland at the Churchill Cup and is staying with a friend in New York whose housemate is smoking so much weed that Jamie is frazzled: "I was so paranoid about being around even the smell of it that I ended up sleeping outside on the flat roof for three weeks, just so I could be in the fresh air and not risk inhaling the smoke."

Four weeks after that.

He returns to Dublin where his father is waiting at the airport with a letter from the Irish Sports Council. "I opened it and to my horror it said that my A sample had failed a drugs test after my last game before the holiday, at the Churchill Cup in San Francisco when I was playing for Ireland A.

"Upon confirmation of receipt of this notification my second, or B, sample would be opened and examined, and a decision would be made as to whether further measures would be taken against me."

Forty-five minutes later.

The letter doesn’t specify what substance has tripped the alarm but he drives home to Naas and phones the late Arthur Tanner, an eminent surgeon and the team doctor at Leinster. "I called him and he was incredibly calm, telling me that the negative finding could be caused by a number of different things that I didn’t know about."

A bit after that.

They discover (How? When?) the substance is testosterone. Heaslip does some digging and is feeling more confident: "Thankfully, in my case an explanation was quickly established. The ratio levels that constituted a positive sample had been changed on 1 January that year, down from either 5:1 or 6:1 to 4:1. Dr Tanner’s hope was that the figures from this latest reading would prove to be consistent with my measures in all the previous readings, before the base was changed on the test — and they were."

A week later.

He’s not yet in the clear. "The doctor told me that there would have to be detailed examination of my B sample, which would tell me what was natural in my testosterone reading and what might not be natural. In other words, the examination of the B sample would be conducted on the basis of searching for artificially induced testosterone — of which I knew there would be none.

"He warned that if this was the case, I might have something else to worry about because a problem with my hormone levels could indicate a cancerous tumour."

A bit after that.

An appointment is made with Professor Donal O’Shea, the consultant endocrinologist: "He took my sample, did all my bloods and did a full check to make sure I didn’t have cancer. Thankfully I didn’t, but what was agreed was that I did have higher testosterone levels than is normal for most people.

"There was nothing in the B sample that was in any way artificial or added, it was simply that my naturally occurring testosterone levels were above the stipulated 4:1 ratio. As Dr Tanner had anticipated, a review of my previous tests discovered consistently high levels of natural testosterone."

Shortly after that.

The issue is finally concluded: "I got a formal letter from the Irish Sports Council to confirm that they had not detected any prohibited substances in my samples. The whole process went on for weeks, but it was rectified pretty quickly, to my great relief. I didn’t mention the episode to anyone until years later."

So, nothing to see here?

Not quite.

For two decades now, the Anti-Doping Unit at Sport Ireland have published a comprehensive, annual review and their report for 2006 (Appendix 2: Reporting of Asserted Anti-Doping Rule Violations) lists a positive test for testosterone and how it was ruled: "Explanation, accepted, no anti-doping rule violation."

But here’s the glitch . . . It was not Jamie Heaslip.

* * * * *

On June 12 2006, two days after Heaslip had played his second game at the Churchill Cup, a middle-distance runner called Gareth Turnbull was driving to his physiotherapist in Jordanstown, Co Antrim when he took a call from Una May, the head of anti-doping at the Irish Sports Council.

"Can I confirm I’m talking to Gareth Turnbull?" he recalls her asking. "Yes you are, I said. ‘I’m just notifying you that you have given a positive test and will have the details in an hour. She didn’t even say what they substance was!"

Turnbull had just arrived home when the van from DHL arrived. The case, presented in a thick red binder, stated that he had tested positive for testosterone the previous September, had been tested three times since, and was required to present himself to a tribunal 10 days later.

Turnbull argued that a night of heavy drinking on the eve of the positive test had caused his testosterone to spike. A second tribunal accepted the argument and in October, five months after the call from May, he was exonerated. Turnbull had received no help at all from Athletics Ireland and had actually been cut adrift. But here’s the question: Why was the rugby player treated differently?

Heaslip was 22 years old that summer and had yet to play for Ireland. A former team-mate with multiple caps who played with him that year recalls being tested once — "possibly twice" — in his entire career. Is it plausible a 22-year-old debutant was tested more? Is it plausible that the Sports Council stored these samples to test them again?

Last week, we sent a series of questions to Una May about the Heaslip case in 2006:

Who ordered the test?

What laboratory was used?

Was the test for synthetic testosterone conducted on the ‘A’ sample before he was notified?

What was the procedure once he was notified?

Did he request the ‘B’ sample to be tested?

Did you have any contact with the IRFU about the test?

Did you engage with Arthur Tanner on the findings of the test?

He says ‘a review of my previous tests discovered consistently high levels of natural testosterone.’ How many times was he tested before 2006?

Would you normally store negative samples?

Were these samples retested?

Had his testosterone levels been flagged before 2006?

He says you sent him “a formal letter” to confirm the Sports Council had not detected “any prohibited substances in my samples.”

Who wrote the letter? What exactly did it say?

Did he continue to show elevated levels for testosterone?

Was he given a dispensation for such?

On Thursday — on route from a Play The Game Conference in Colorado Springs — Una May explained that she was prohibited from discussing the specifics of the case but could talk in general terms. "The majority of the questions you sent were personal (to Jamie Heaslip), and things we can’t comment on," she said.

This is an edited transcript of the conversation that followed:

"Have you read the chapter in his book?"

"No, I’ve been in the States for the last week."

"Would you like me to send it to you?"

"Well, I know the guys back in the office have read it and their view is that it isn’t entirely consistent from our point of view. He’s mixing things up."

"He says he was tested at the Churchill Cup? You didn’t do that test?"

"We have no jurisdiction to test in competitions outside of Ireland."

"So it was USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency)?"

"I’ve no idea who would have done it."

"How were you notified?"

"We would have nothing to do with it, except if there was a concern we would contact the international federation."

"But this was the starting point? He got a letter from you saying he had committed an anti-doping offence (at the Churchill Cup) in August 2006."

"Well I think, what you’ll find, is that he has confused stuff there . . . You really . . . You need to ring him, not us, because it’s all his personal information. I can’t tell you what we did or didn’t write to him — it’s personal information — but I will tell you that he’s getting confused. He’s muddling things up."

"Did he have an adverse finding in 2006? And did you notify him? It’s a straight question, Una."

"Well I know, but you’re asking a straight question about an individual, personal, case. If it came to a hearing, and a decision was reached, you’d know about it. But if there isn’t a decision, and there hasn’t been a sanction imposed, then it’s personal between himself and ourselves. We’ve explained what (normally happens) but we can’t give you the personal information for an individual athlete who clearly has not had a positive test."

"He’s saying he did. He’s saying that you — the Sports Council — notified him of an adverse analytical finding in August 2006."

"Well, I’m saying to you that if we did, and if there was a case to answer, you would have known about it."

"What do you mean by ‘if’? Either you did or you didn’t?"

"Why don’t you ask him to confirm it? Why are you asking us?"

"He has written it in his book — it’s in black and white."

"But you’re asking me to confirm what’s in his book."

"I’m asking if you sent him a letter?"

"And I’m telling you that if there was a positive finding, and it came to a hearing, you would know about it. If it didn’t come to a hearing then it’s not a positive case."

"So you didn’t notify him? Is this what you’re trying to tell me?"

"No, what I’m telling you is that you have to ask him for the details."

"But we have the details. He has explained them in his book."

"And I’m telling you that he may be confused, and that it would be appropriate to contact him and to ask him to show you what he has, because it’s not consistent with what we have."

"So this notion that he had a positive test and was cleared because you went back and retested his previous samples is complete nonsense?"

"Well, I’m not going to answer on his behalf, all I’m telling you without going into detail is that he has things confused."

In the past week, we’ve made repeated efforts to address the confusion (USADA say they didn’t test at the Churchill Cup that year) but Heaslip has refused to engage with us. We were declined an interview. On Thursday, we asked his ghostwriter, Matt Cooper, if — in the course of writing the book — he had seen any correspondence between Heaslip and the Sports Council. "I’m not saying anything about it," he replied. He was equally curt when we requested an email for Heaslip. "I’ll pass your message on," he said.

A friend of Heaslip’s was more charitable and on Thursday we sent him an email:

Jamie,

I’ve made various efforts to contact you — through Matt Cooper and your publishers — with regard to your book. I’ve read the chapter about your positive test in August 2006 and have been talking to the Sports Council about it. I’m writing a story this week and have a couple of questions for you. I understand you’re on route to Japan but if you send me a number I’ll call tomorrow.

The offer stands.

Online Editors