Ex-Scotland rugby league captain Ollie Wilkes admits to doping during career to ‘compete’ with other drug cheats
FORMER Scotland rugby league captain Ollie Wilkes has admitted to doping during his career.
Speaking to ITV, Wilkes revealed he turned to performance enhancers so he could ‘compete’ with other drug cheats.
The 41-year-old ex-prop and second row played over 500 games for 11 different clubs during a 21-year professional rugby league career.
And he hopes his admission will inspire young players to avoid going down the same path.
Wilkes claims the first time he used performance-enhancing drugs was ahead of his 2006 move to Wigan Warriors.
And he also wants rugby league authorities to clamp down on any usage in the game.
On why he began to consider doping, Wilkes said: “I used to see people who I was as good as, then all of a sudden come back after a pre-season massive. I’d never say what club, what name. And then just see ’em absolutely tear it up.
“They were quite slow at the start of pre-season, just a bit heavy and then shred up a bit. I assume they’d be clean by this point and avoided being caught…
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“At one stage I thought to myself: ‘How am I going to compete with that person knowing they’re doing what they’re doing?’
“This was before I tried it myself. You knew that someone was using something and you knew you were as good as them, but they’d be getting picked. But you think to yourself: ‘Is that what I have to do to, to get in the team? Do I have to take something?'”
On the first time he took performance-enhancing drugs, Wilkes revealed: “I signed for Whitehaven and I was only training two times a week, and they’d offered me alright money and I thought to myself, I was like: ‘Should I have some, see what all the fuss is about?’
“So I tried a performance enhancing drug, a banned one, and six weeks into the season I got a phone call off Wigan, to sign for Wigan. And, uh, I thought to myself: ‘Well’, I thought: ‘It worked.’
“Where I grew up the nearest big club was Wigan. I grew up as a Wigan fan and when I got the phone call that day, it was like all my dreams come true.
I know I was bigger and stronger
Ollie Wilkes
“Did I feel guilty that I had taken something, that was illegal in sport? Or was it like: ‘Well about time’?
“You know, I didn’t know. I didn’t know what to think. It’s like: ‘Well, it’s, it’s got me there or did it?’
“You know, was I, was I going to be playing that well that year to get seen and picked anyway, I don’t know, but I know I was bigger and stronger.”
Wilkes also claims some coaches at former clubs would protect players from drug testers.
He added: “On a couple of occasions. I could say that if anybody had been mentioned… drug testers are here. If you’re not here now – here is your chance to bob out and there has been a couple of times when guys have nipped out and their names haven’t gone down on the list.
“I remember being at a club and a guy jumped in the back of my car for a lift between training sessions and he just jabbed a needle in his arm.”