Rugby star get two-year ban for cocaine use, blames kissing girl

Wigan’s Gabriel Hamlin failed a drug test after the game against Leeds in February 2019 [COURTESY]

Former Wigan prop Gabe Hamlin has been handed a two-year ban following testing positive for cocaine.

Hamlin, who got tested after Wigan’s opening fixture of the season against Leeds, was suspended by the Rugby Football League in April last year after being charged with violation of United Kingdom Anti-Doping (UKAD) rules.

He, however, denies that he did not consume the banned substance but got it from kissing a woman.

Mr Hamlin asserts that on the evening of 7 February 2019 he was at his home with a woman he had met through an online dating application. He indicates that he and the woman kissed during the course of the evening from around 10:30pm. He maintains he did not consume cocaine or see the woman consuming it; he suggests that she appeared ‘very chatty and visited the bathroom several times’ and that he discovered white powder in his bathroom the following morning,” read a statement from the UKAD website.

Hamlin, who was in the last year of his two-year contract before testing positive for cocaine, is said to have been offered rehabilitation assistance by his former team Wigan.