“Inconsolable” Wallabies star Karmichael Hunt has been arrested, reportedly for possessing drugs, with Rugby Australia yesterday launching an investigation into the incident.
Hunt, a former rugby league international who made his Wallaby debut this year, was detained along with another man in Brisbane early yesterday morning during a random street stop.
He was allegedly caught with a white powder, which local media said was cocaine.
“Rugby Australia has today been made aware of an incident involving Wallabies and Queensland Reds back Karmichael Hunt in Brisbane overnight,” the sport’s governing body said in a statement. “It is understood Hunt was arrested and has subsequently been released by Queensland Police.”
“Rugby Australia takes all matters relating to the off-field behavior of its players seriously and has commenced an investigation into the incident in conjunction with the Queensland Rugby Union,” it added.
The Sydney Morning Herald said he was due to appear in court on Jan. 29, charged with two counts of drug possession.
“He is very upset, as anyone would expect, and pretty much inconsolable,” Hunt’s solicitor Adam Magill told the newspaper. “He is sticking with his family. He’s got concerns and his manager is taking care of him.”
It is not the first time Hunt had been in trouble with the law.
He was in 2015 banned for six weeks and fined A$30,000 (US$23,405) by the Reds after pleading guilty to four charges of cocaine possession.
As well as his club fine, he was stripped of the Reds’ vice-captaincy and ordered to pay A$2,500 by magistrates on Queensland’s Gold Coast.
Despite the setback, he managed to re-establish himself at the Reds and made his Wallabies debut this year, becoming one of the stars of Australia’s home Tests in June.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier