{"id":666994,"date":"2026-05-12T23:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T23:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/666994\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T23:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T23:27:08","slug":"georgia-rugby-players-including-former-captain-banned-over-drug-test-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/666994\/","title":{"rendered":"Georgia rugby players, including former captain, banned over drug test scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Georgia captain Merab Sharikadze was one of six players handed lengthy bans from rugby for their part in a scheme involving alleged sample substitution and advance warnings of drug tests, World Rugby said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

A joint probe conducted by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and World Rugby revealed six Georgia rugby players and a team official had committed anti-doping rule violations.<\/p>\n

Sharikadze, who captained Georgia when they shocked Wales in 2022, has been banned from the sport for 11 years, while hooker Giorgi Chkoidze has been banned for six years.<\/p>\n

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Lasha Khmaladze, Otar Lashkhi and Miriani Modebadze each received three-year suspensions while Lasha Lomidze was banned for nine months. The official, Nutsa Shamatava, was banned for nine years.<\/p>\n

“These suspensions are backdated to include the provisional suspensions issued to all individuals upon charge and result in a complete suspension from all rugby activities,” World Rugby said in a statement.<\/p>\n

WADA said it found five instances where players swapped urine samples to avoid detection, while employees of Georgia’s national anti-doping agency, GADA, also tipped off players about upcoming tests.<\/p>\n

World Rugby said the investigation was triggered when “irregularities in urine samples were identified” by its athlete passport management program.<\/p>\n

Sharikadze had provided a urine sample for three players \u2014 Modebadze, Lomidze and Lashkhi \u2014 between February 2022 and June 2023, with DNA analysis confirming the sample did not match the concerned players.<\/p>\n

“The DNA comparisons confirmed that the [three samples] \u2026 were a match for the DNA profile of Merab Sharikadze,” World Rugby said.<\/p>\n

Shamatava was identified as the organiser of the urine sample substitution while she also “provided advance notice of upcoming out-of-competition doping controls” in group chats to at least 26 players.<\/p>\n

“World Rugby’s operating hypothesis was that the urine sample substitutions were conducted to conceal the use of performance-enhancing substances, however World Rugby’s extensive investigation has revealed no evidence to support this,” World Rugby said.<\/p>\n

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“In parallel, there was credible evidence to support the players’ assertions that the urine sample substitutions occurred to conceal the use of non-performance-enhancing substances [namely, cannabis and tramadol].”<\/p>\n

World Rugby also issued a misconduct charge against the Georgia Rugby Union, which accepted the charge and agreed to a sanction, including a financial penalty.<\/p>\n

It covered a period of time prior to the 2023 men’s Rugby World Cup in France, where Georgia finished bottom of their pool without a victory.<\/p>\n

Sharikadze has since retired from rugby and made the switch to mixed martial arts, making his debut in November with a win.<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Georgia captain Merab Sharikadze was one of six players handed lengthy bans from rugby for their part…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[5844,92149,64,63,6782,321994,760,588,85,235862,12907],"class_list":["post-666994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-abc-sport","tag-anti-doping","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-georgia","tag-merab-sharikadze","tag-rugby","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-wada","tag-world-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}