One of the impacts of having a robust drug testing regime is it can catch the unaware, naive or even unfortunate in its net.
In Otago, cricketer Jesse Ryder, veteran cyclist Mark Spessot and footballer Kelsey Kennard have all copped bans after failing drugs tests.
There is a stigma associated with failing a test and labelling any of the above as cheats would be manifestly unfair, yet their record has been stained.
Spessot tested positive for a common asthma medication he had self-administered and therefore was not entitled to apply for a retrospective therapeutic use exemption.
Ryder was caught out when the weight-loss supplement he was taking turned out to contain prohibited substances which were not listed on the product label.
Kennard was perhaps the most unfortunate.
She tested positive for probenecid which she had been given by a doctor while in hospital being treated for a cellulitis infection.
Emeritus Professor David Gerrard, who is chairman of Wada's therapeutic use exemption committee, has sympathy for people unwittingly caught in the web but said New Zealand athletes were well-educated and should be aware of their obligations.
"There is a responsibility which resides with every athlete at the elite level that if you need a medication that is prohibited ... you must apply for a therapeutic use exemption,'' he said.
Drugfree Sport New Zealand chief executive Graeme Steel knows all too well the flaws in the system and took a softer line. However, finding the middle ground between the rules and the hard luck stories was difficult terrain to traverse.
"[Kennard] was probably the hardest luck story of them all. She just got properly medically treated but did not twig to the fact that that was an issue for her.
"The rules cannot perfectly discriminate between those who set out to cheat and those who don't. That is something that we are constantly facing and we are regularly saying to Wada we need to be able to sieve out who is cheating and who is not.
"Once you find a prohibited substances in someone's system, how do you prove one way or the other that they weren't trying to cheat? It is not easy.
"But it is something we are alert to when we deal with someone like Kelsey. That's what the rules say but we aren't out to get them and we take a reasonably sympathetic approach.''
