Magdeburg’s Nikola Portner
Crystal meth on goalkeeper: B sample confirms doping discovery
May 2, 2024, 11:17 p.m
The doping discovery is correct: Crystal meth was also detected in the B sample of handball goalkeeper Nikola Portner. The keeper from Bundesliga leaders SC Magdeburg is threatened with a multi-year ban.
In the suspected doping case involving Magdeburg handball goalkeeper Nikola Portner, the analysis of the B sample confirmed the result of the A sample. Portner’s lawyer Rainer Tarek Cherkeh announced this in a club statement from the Bundesliga leaders. “The analysis of the B sample confirmed (as usual) the result of the A sample. With regard to the concentration level, we refer to the statements made so far,” said the statement.
On April 10th, a positive A sample from a competition test of the 30-year-old Swiss national goalkeeper became known. Methamphetamines were detected there. Portner has since been suspended. If the B sample had not confirmed the result, the goalkeeper would have been eligible to play again immediately.
Instead, disciplinary proceedings are now beginning. While the Handball Bundesliga was previously responsible, further action is now the responsibility of the Anti-Doping Commission of the German Handball Federation (DHB). This will determine the punishment. Both the goalkeeper and the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) then have the opportunity to appeal to an arbitration tribunal to be set up if one of the two parties does not agree with the penalty. Portner faces a multi-year ban.
His lawyer had previously claimed that the concentration level measured was a fraction of a typical intake of this substance. In the club’s announcement he confirmed: “According to the current state of knowledge and further investigations, it is also impossible that a ‘normal’ amount of methamphetamine ever entered Nikola Portner’s body in the weeks and months before the relevant doping test.”
At the end of April, the Magdeburg public prosecutor’s office stopped the criminal investigation against the 30-year-old. However, this had no impact on NADA’s doping procedure.