Janez (Jani) Brajkovič has been sanctioned with a ten month ban due to an adverse analytical finding (AAF) for methylhexanamine from a sample taken on 18 April during the Tour of Croatia, which the Slovenian cyclist has blamed on a meal supplement. Brajkovič’s ban will expire on 1 June, the Union Cycliste Internationale’s (UCI) list of riders sanctioned for an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV) confirms. In a blog posting, Brajkovič said that he accepted the sanction and did not request opening of his B sample. 

‘Last year, end of July, I was notified from UCI, that my sample, taken on April 18, contained small quantities of prohibited substance Methlyhexanamine (MH)’, reads the blog posting. ‘MH is a stimulant and it is prohibited in competition. I said “small”, because, from what information I was able to obtain, my sample had 20x-40x smaller the concentration, comparing to samples from other athletes who also tested positive for MH.’

Brajkovič explained that he researched all the supplements he had used, all of which were the same brands except one. This was a meal replacement powder he had started using in January, when he wasn’t sure he was going to race in 2018. However, he also checked the ingredients of the new supplement.

‘I still checked the label for any banned ingredients’, he continues. ‘I checked on Aegis Shield, Examine.com, and a few other sites. It looked good, just some whole food proteins and carbs. So since this was the only change I’d made, I dug deeper and found out, this very same company used to make a pre-workout, containing MH.’

Brajkovič explained that he was lucky that the UCI accepted his explanation, as he had finished the tub containing the supplement in late April, and hadn’t recorded its lot number. He said that as he didn’t have the money or energy to fight the suspension, he decided to accept it.