Georgia when they shocked Wales in 2022<\/a>, has been banned from the sport for 11 years while hooker Giorgi Chkoidze has been banned for six years.<\/p>\nLasha Khmaladze, Otar Lashkhi and Miriani Modebadze each received three-year suspensions while Lasha Lomidze was banned for nine months. The official, Dr 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 they 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 their athlete passport management programme.<\/p>\n
Sharikadze had provided a urine sample for three players – Modebadze, Lomidze and Lashkhi – 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)… 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\u2019s extensive investigation has revealed no evidence to support this,” they added.<\/p>\n
“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, who 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
Follow our live blog on Ireland v Scotland in the Guinness Women’s Six Nations on Sunday from 2.30pm and listen to Sunday Sport on RT\u00c9 Radio 1. Watch Wales v Italy (12.15pm) and France v England (4.45pm) on RT\u00c9 Player<\/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":445261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-445260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}