Widnes Vikings star given backdated UK Anti-Doping ban for cocaine use

UK Anti-Doping have revealed that Widnes Vikings winger Jake Maizen served a three-month ban from professional sport last summer after testing positive for cocaine.

Maizen was playing for Whitehaven last season and was tested after the Cumbrian club’s game against Sheffield Eagles on July 28. That test returned adverse findings for prohibited substance cocaine and benzoylecgonine, a metabolite of cocaine.

Cocaine usage is prohibited by UKAD in-competition and is referred to as a ‘substance of abuse’ by the authorities. Suspensions of three months are applicable if it can be proven use of cocaine has been taken out of competition, however.

And Maizen admitted after being notified by UKAD that he had taken 0.3 grams of cocaine out of competition on Friday July 26: less than 48 hours before taking to the field for Whitehaven.

However, after UKAD consulted independent scientific experts to quantify that claim, it was alleged that: “an impossibly large amount of cocaine” needed to have been taken on that date for it to still be in his urine sample two days later.

Maizen then amended his statement claiming he had taken one gram of cocaine on that Friday evening.

And after a tribunal on April 11 this year, it emerged that Maizen had indeed ingested the amount of cocaine claimed on Friday July 26, as well as a ‘small amount of cocaine’ through ‘environmental exposure’ out of competition the following day, Saturday July 27: the day before playing for Whitehaven.

Maizen was therefore handed a three-month ban which commenced on August 22 last year, having been provisionally suspended from that time. He last featured for Whitehaven four days earlier, on August 18.

Maizen has therefore served his suspension and is free to continue playing for Widnes. He signed for the Vikings at the beginning of this year, having returned to Australia following the end of his spell with Whitehaven.

Full details of the case can be read here.

WEDNESDAY’S READS ON LRL

👉🏻 The clubs set for major jumps in IMG performance score including Championship big hitter

👉🏻 Castleford make Liam Horne appeal call as Danny McGuire attacks ‘bewildering’ ban

👉🏻 Why Liam Horne was banned but Rhyse Martin wasn’t as tribunal minutes revealed

👉🏻 Wakefield dealt fresh Jake Trueman blow but key trio could return for Catalans clash