Liza Hunter-Galvan decried by team-mates

An Olympics team-mate of Liza Hunter-Galvan says her two-year ban for taking the banned drug EPO has "dirtied the black singlet".

The Sunday Star- Times was the first to reveal, on July 5, that marathoner Hunter- Galvan - famous for taking on and beating Athletics New Zealand to force her selection for the Beijing Games - was under investigation for a drugs offence.

On Friday, her drug-taking was finally made public.

Jason Stewart, who ran the 800m for New Zealand at the 2004 Olympics and 2006 Commonwealth Games, led a chorus of condemnation from the athletics community when he told the Star-Times last night: "We've never had, that I can recall, a positive test from any New Zealand runner and I'm proud of that. I was proud to be competing overseas knowing that we were all clean. It may sound like a cliche to say that she has soiled the black singlet, but I really think that she has."

Others echoed Stewart. Posting online, top marathoner Craig Kirkwood called her a "dirty drug cheat" and former elite 10,000m runner Robbie Johnston suggested she should never return to New Zealand.

Triathlon coach Mark Watson told the Star-Times: "To me, it's fraud. In any other industry, she'd go to jail."

Hunter-Galvan's defence strategy hasn't helped. She demanded her B test sample be tested and then flown to her for further checks, time-wasting that dragged out the hearing by six months before her confession.

She also claimed she hadn't known the substance she ingested contained EPO and she'd taken it only three times. That angered Stewart, who said: "It's the same excuse we always hear. It would just be refreshing if she came out and said . . . I cheated, I got caught, I rolled the dice and lost.

"I'm sick of hearing shit like this. It's like a serial killer, they find him with 10 severed heads in his freezer and he doesn't know anything about the other 20 bodies buried in his backyard."

Others note Hunter-Galvan was under personal stress, particularly from the car crash in 2007 that left her daughter Amber brain-damaged, and her constant battles with Athletics New Zealand. A statement released by her lawyer, Howard Jacobs, cited that as a factor, noting an email from Athletics NZ in February describing her Beijing performance (she was 35th) as "NOT good - you failed".

There is a feeling Athletics NZ has never liked Hunter-Galvan and it seems likely the initial leak about her failed drug test came from within athletics circles.

Veteran coach Jack Ralston said Athletics NZ should shoulder some blame. "I think ANZ should take a huge amount of responsibility for this, because what they were doing was demanding faster and faster times and eventually, you get to a stage where you say, 'How do I go faster?'

"Good administration would stand up and say, we are partly to blame for this . . . she put the pill in her throat, but we've got to make sure this never happens again."

Hunter-Galvan's campaign to run at Beijing drew widespread support, partly driven by some athletes' deep dissatisfaction over a poorly written selection policy and a belief, always denied by Athletics NZ, that there was a blacklist of athletes judged to have "failed" on the big stage.

Athletics NZ now has a new selection policy, driven by newly appointed high performance director Kevin Ankrom, who resented being saddled with the previous administration's hand-me-downs.

The spearhead of Hunter-Galvan's Olympic campaign, former New Zealand cross-country international Rees Buck, said she deserved a life ban, but noted: "I think she's well aware of how devastating this will be for her career, her family and her personally. She'll be known as the druggie, rather than the inspirational person who worked hard to get to the Olympics. It's a shame, because she'll never be allowed to lose that taint."

Athletics legend Peter Snell, who had also supported her, was more forgiving, telling TV3: "I don't think she deliberately cheated. I think she was caught in a down moment."

John Bowden, the selector who initially denied Hunter-Galvan an Olympics place because he didn't think her capable of a top-16 finish, revealed last night he quit last week as Athletics NZ track and field selection convener. Asked if this affair was a factor, he said: "It has been."

Bowden lost his other post as head road selector after Beijing, and last month's AGM heard a motion to bar selectors coaching elite athletes, which he "took very personally". He coached Hunter-Galvan's marathon rival, Nina Rillstone, but said "there was never anything personal" in his decision.

Last night, he described himself as "angry, and sad that she's put her sport through this".

- © Fairfax NZ News