Kiwi Olympian Zane Robertson has spoken out about the doping charge that has seen him slapped with an eight-year ban from competition.
On Wednesday, Drugfree Sport NZ announced the Commonwealth Games bronze medallist returned a positive sample for Erythropoietin (EPO) from a test conducted at the UK's Great Manchester Run in May 2022.
He was also charged with submitting fraudulent documentation in his defence. Each of the two charges carry a four-year ban.
Speaking on Dom Harvey's Runners Only podcast, the 33-year-old accepted his punishment and offered an open apology to his supporters.
"I would definitely tell them I'm really sorry I let them all down," Robertson said. "I just want to tell them.. this wasn't my whole career.
"From my stand point, I still stand the same on the topic [of doping]. I always wanted to do my best for everyone who looked up to me.. and I'm sorry.
"Obviously not a great day for me. It's been a pretty depressing, devastating day for me."
Robertson said he'd known about the ban since September 2022, when he was provisionally suspended after returning the first of his positive EPO tests, which was later confirmed by a B-Sample.
"I was notified last year in September when I was in Sydney to pace the marathon," he recalled.
"I was obviously in a lot of shock and stress and not knowing what to do.. I didn't sleep all night.
"I performed poorly there… I was suffering a long time before this even happened."
Robertson represented New Zealand in the marathon at the Rio Olympics in 2016 and Tokyo 2020, and holds six national distance running records. He won bronze in the men's 5000m at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014.
A long-time staunch anti-drug advocate, he said he'd decided to start doping due to "frustration and anger" with the sport, as well as general disillusionment with the realities of being a professional athlete.
"There are many reasons and it's not just one particular reason," he said. "I hate it so much… it's just a one-off hit and I got caught."
"In any elite sport I believe the top is not a level playing field like they say. I started to ask myself this question: 'Why do people like myself always have to be the ones to lose or suffer’' and in the end lose our contracts, lose our income, lose our race winnings and eventually end up not having the ability to have a family or live anywhere else in the world in the predicaments we're in.
"The other reason, especially after the Covid era, prizemoney in races went down. Contracts were almost dropped as well. After the Olympics I was told by one of my companies 'we thought you would run better', and immediate exit from the deal.
"The other company was holding on for the bare minimum and I had pressure from my management. I was constantly getting injured in the race shoes I was trying to develop.
"Nothing was seeming to go my way."
The idea to begin using the EPO came from his ex-wife, Robertson told Runners Only.
"My ex-wife and I started talking about this thing a few years back... and one day she showed up with it."
Robertson took complete culpability for the falsification of medical records, which he confessed was last-ditch, desperate attempt to escape punishment.
The documents claimed he'd been given EPO when attending a medical facility in Kenya, where he lives and trains, for COVID-19.
"I want to take full blame, that was my idea," he admitted. "For me, four years was the same as eight... there is no coming back from this.
"I was just trying to save my arse and I want people to think, like really deeply think, if that was them, if they'd invested 16 years into being a professional and they were going to lose their career because of one f**k up then, I guess a lot of people would try and save their arse, and that's what I tried to do.
"I made a bad decision and I'm paying the price for it... I understand this is what you get."
Robertson insisted he only used EPO on one occasion, claiming he'd been tested 50 times prior to the positive sample in Manchester, all of which had returned clean results.
That includes his bronze medal from Glasgow 2014, which he's adamant he won legtimately and should be allowed to keep.
"It's nine years, my sample should still be there," he said. "Go and retest all of my samples.
"I have nothing to hide from my past.. from all my national records, my past achievements. They can go ahead and test."
"In a really dark place" due to a "nasty" divorce, he said the EPO helped him recover faster and train harder.
"I wanted to die," he confessed. "I didn't want to live anymore ,and I didn't know why I was doing this sport anymore.
"I think that would've been the right time to maybe try and find something else to do and retire.
"Unfortunately we don't always make the right decisions."
Robertson's twin brother Jake also represented New Zealand at the Commonwealth Games. The two moved to Kenya when they were 17 years old to further their running ambitions.
He said his brother was also deeply impacted by his actions.
"If I'm going to be totally honest, coming home from my brother's today I just wanted to go and shoot myself in the head.
"My brother's pissed off as well. This was the worst thing for me, because I knew this wasn't going to just be affecting me.
"It will affect him and my sister-in-law, his wife, because they are both athletes and I don't know how to help."
Robertson was quick to distance his brother from his own indiscretions, insisting he had no involvement with or knowledge of his drug cheating.
"If one student in a classrom cheats, are they all cheating? Just because they're all in that same classroom? That's bullshit."
Dropped by his sponsors and struck from High Performance Sports NZ's athlete pathway support programme, Robertson said he's unsure what his next step will be or when - or if - he'll return to New Zealand.
In the meantime, he intends on staying in Kenya, where he can keep a low profile.
"I think it's a lot easier for me to disappear here than in New Zealand. So, if I can just disappear then I will."
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Shakti Community Council - 0800 742 584
