Frozen samples may turn up heat - Sydney Morning Herald

"We froze urine samples but without a test available, it was up to our intelligence to gather the information,": Aurora Andruska, ASADA CEO. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

NRL players, including those at Cronulla in 2011, are believed to have been target-tested for performance-enhancing drugs during the Australian Crime Commission's 18-month investigation and their samples frozen until more sophisticated testing becomes available.

While no player has returned a positive drugs sample, the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority does not yet have the capabilities to detect some substances but may have in the future.

In the meantime, it is understood ASADA collected samples from players who had come under suspicion during the ACC's investigation into links between organised crime and doping and match fixing in Australian sport.

Fairfax Media has been told that target-testing was one of the few options available to ASADA while the ACC's Project Aperio was taking place as the agency would not have been allowed to jeopardise a criminal investigation. The ACC passed on information about NRL and AFL players suspected of using performance-enhancing substances and ASADA then targeted them in the course of routine drug testing it carried out for the codes.

The samples are stored in the Tank, an industrial freezer at the National Measurement Institute in Sydney. The Tank holds about 2000 samples taken from athletes across Australian sport.

They can be stored under controlled conditions for up to eight years and defrosted when technological advances enable ASADA to test for substances that are as yet undetectable.

A source with intimate knowledge of the alleged doping violations at Cronulla says the Sharks suspected certain players had been target-tested by ASADA representatives at training and games.

ASADA chief executive Aurora Andruska said last week that some substances could not be detected in drugs tests.

''We froze urine samples but without a test available, it was up to our intelligence to gather the information,'' Andruska said. ''By working with the ACC, we got ahead of the curve.''

It is believed that the fact ASADA cannot test for certain substances may have caused confusion about whether they were legal.

Fairfax Media has been told that ASADA was asked about the use of CJC-1295 and Beta Thymosin by NRL players in 2011, and advised that they did not have the funds to properly classify and ban or approve peptides as there are about 10,000 varieties.

CJC-1295 was not added to the banned list until September 2011, after the period when sports scientist Stephen Dank worked for the club. However, ASADA say the substances are covered by a catch-all clause in Section 2 of the WADA code that contains a list of banned peptides, hormones, growth factors and related substances ''as well as any other growth factor affecting muscle, tendon or ligament protein synthesis/degradation, vascularisation, energy utilisation, regenerative capacity or fibre-type switching; and other substances with similar chemical structure or similar biological effect(s)''.

The ACC's surveillance operations are also believed to have collected evidence through recorded phone conversations and by obtaining credit card receipts for the purchase of substances deemed illegal for athletes by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

That evidence has been passed on to ASADA, and is expected to be produced in any NRL drugs tribunal hearings.

Fairfax Media was also told ASADA can use testimony given to the ACC in hearings which have the same power as a royal commission and compel witnesses to tell the truth or face criminal charges.

''ASADA would get everything that the ACC has collected,'' a source said. ''The only time that ASADA would not get that information is if it is related to an ongoing criminal investigation.''