Welcome to Season 2 of On Side.

Today’s episode features 2008 and 2012 Paralympic cycling gold medallist Michael Gallagher.

Prior to the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games, Gallagher tested positive for recombinant erythropoietin (rEPO) at a training camp in Italy. Still under sanction, Gallagher talks about the biggest impact his sanction had on him and what drove him to “cross a dark line”.

“It [sanction] is still something I think about regularly,” Gallagher says. “I took a long time to recover from it… [and did] a lot of self-reflecting.”

Gallagher is now a member of ASADA’s Athlete Advisory Group (AAG), which comprises a number of current and former athletes, including athletes who have lost medals to drug cheats.

“Sports a passionate thing, and people have the right to feel strongly about certain people’s decisions, but I think my story, and people meeting me in person, probably makes doping seem a lot less black and white,” he says. “That you can be a good person, an honest person, but head down the wrong way.”

Our athlete services officer Di Tucknott also answers a question about logging your whereabouts, along with our sports operations manager Steve Northey delivering a 'fast fact' about anti-doping tests conducted last financial year.