A Dunedin-based rugby player has been banned for four years after admitting purchasing performance-enhancing drugs.

The ban came after NZ Customs intercepted a package addressed to Carlin Wilkinson-Ballantine in February that was found to contain clenbuterol and tamoxifen.

A Sport Integrity Commission press release said Wilkinson-Ballantine, who was named as a member of the Dunedin Rugby Football Club on the Otago Rugby website in June, admitted buying clenbuterol but denied purchasing tamoxifen.

Clenbuterol and tamoxifen are banned in sports at all times under anti-doping rules. The former is an anabolic agent and has no approved medical use, but is used in a doping context to reduce body fat and gain muscle mass. Tamoxifen is a hormone and metabolic modulated, used medically to treat types of breast cancer, but to counter the side effects of steroid use in a doping context.

Commission CEO Rebecca Rolls said New Zealand’s anti-doping rules were to protect health and the right to fair play.

“Doping doesn’t just put an individual’s health at risk, it denies all those who play sport the chance to compete on a level playing field. No New Zealand athlete should lose a competition, medal or place on a team to someone who has doped to get there.”

The four-year ban imposed on Wilkinson-Ballantine by the New Zealand Rugby Judicial Committee is effective from June 10 this year.

In 2017, international ice hockey-playing brothers Lachlan and Mitchell Frear were banned for two years after buying clenbuterol.

It came after the Weekend Herald revealed more than 100 athletes registered with national sporting organisations had been caught illegally purchasing steroids from the website clenbuterol.co.nz. The website’s owner, Joshua Francis Townshend, was jailed for two years after a Medsafe investigation.