Three more rugby players have been banned from playing rugby for breaching New Zealand Rugby's anti-doping rules.
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Two of the three were part of an investigation by MedSafe into the banned anabolic agent, Clenbuterol.
Brandyn Laursen, Tukiterangi Raimona and Lionel Skipwith were charged with possession and use or attempted use of a prohibited substance.
The announcement follows the banning of a former secondary school rugby player earlier this month for four years for also possessing Clenbuterol.
Drug Free Sport New Zealand said then that it was investigating a number of athletes in New Zealand who were found to be purchasing steroids online.
A New Zealand Rugby Judicial Committee released a statement today detaling the cases against the three.
It said Brandyn Laursen had taken Clenbuterol to help with off-season weight loss in 2014 and 2015 but "the violations were not intentional". Because he admitted it straight away, the committee gave him a discounted sanction to a two year ban, backdated to June 2017.
Lionel Skipwith told the committee he did not know that Clenbuterol was a banned substance since he was a club player and had not received any information on anti-doping. He took it in early 2015 for fat burning and weight loss and came across it from friends at a local fitness centre. His two year ban was backdated to September 2017.
The committee suspended Raimona for possession of another banned anabolic agent Dianabol, or metandienone, in the summer of 2015. He stopped playing rugby after breaking his jaw in a club game the season before so thought he was no longer bound by anti-doping regulations as he wasn't a registered player and never intended to play again. He took Dianabol to "better cope with the demands of the manual work and gym routine he had at the time".
But he then played a sevens match and decided to play rugby again from March 2015. The committee said the anti-doping regulations still applied to him retrospectively and banned him for two years, backdated to May 2017.
