Latest news with #MichaelFarrelly
Irish Examiner
11 hours ago
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
New Irish 4x100m relay record set by Farrelly, Akinola, Lawlor and Olatunde
Michael Farrelly, Bori Akinola, Marcus Lawlor and Israel Olatunde have set a new Irish 4x100m relay record in a time of 38.92 seconds. The quartet finished in second place at the World Continental Tour Meet in Switzerland on Saturday. The previous national record of 39.26s was set by John McAdorey, Gary Ryan, Tom Comyns and Paul Brizzel at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. Comyns took to X to congratulate the squad on breaking the record.
The 42
12 hours ago
- Sport
- The 42
Irish men's 4x100m relay team break longstanding national record
THE NATIONAL RECORD for the men's 4x100m relay has been broken. Michael Farrelly, Bori Akinola, Marcus Lawlor and Israel Olatunde set the new record of 38.92 seconds at the World Continental Tour Meet in Switzerland to take second. Advertisement Their brilliant performance eclipsed a record that has stood for 25 years. John McAdorey, Gary Ryan, Tom Comyns and Paul Brizzel ran a time of 39.26 at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Elsewhere, Sarah Lavin finished in second place in the final of the women's 100m hurdles at the 2025 Motonet GP Kuortanein on the World Continental Tour in Finland. Lavin clocked a time of 12.99 to come in behind Nooralotta Neziri of Finland who crossed the line in 12.85.
ABC News
14 hours ago
- ABC News
Health authority hands down lifetime ban for testosterone salesman Michael Farrelly
When Michael Farrelly stepped out onto a Gold Coast street in late 2016, wearing a jumper plastered in oversized Chanel logos, an ABC TV crew was waiting for him. As he walked to a waiting convertible, the self-described "serial entrepreneur" dodged questions about charging patients as much as $44,000 for untested stem cell therapy with the promise it could treat everything from multiple sclerosis to cancer. "Just wondering if you're aware that your company … has been referred to the Queensland Health Ombudsman for misleading and deceptive practices?" the reporter asked him. "You'll have to talk to my lawyer about that," he replied, before speeding off into the night. The Queensland Health Ombudsman never took any action against Michael Farrelly, who'd been operating his stem cell business in that state under an alias, Mikael Wolfe. It would be nearly a decade before Michael Farrelly came onto the ABC's radar again. When Background Briefing started looking into serious complaints about him last year, the businessman had undergone a makeover — he'd found a new product to spruik, moved to New South Wales and even taken up a new alias, Vergel Page. As Vergel Page, he was selling testosterone online to men with the promise of making them feel like a "million bucks", giving them "big coconut balls" and sending their sex drive "through the roof". Many of his clients told us the reality of this treatment fell far short of his shiny sales pitch. Some were left thousands of dollars out of pocket, while others even experienced serious health impacts. But now, almost a decade after he was first investigated by health authorities, Michael Farrelly has been permanently banned from the healthcare industry by the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC). In issuing the permanent ban this month, the HCCC found that in operating three online testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) clinics — Climax Clinic, Australian Institute of Sports Science and Peak Performance Clinic — Farrelly's conduct had "posed a risk to public safety". It said that despite having no qualifications to do so, he'd made recommendations to his clients about medication, including telling one patient to double his testosterone dose "against the instruction of the named prescriber". "A permanent prohibition order means Mr Farrelly is banned from providing any health service in any capacity in NSW, Queensland, South Australia, and Victoria," NSW Health Care Complaints Commissioner John Tansey told the ABC. "Mr Farrelly showed little regard for client safety or the laws that regulate health services. The evidence confirmed he posed a serious and ongoing risk to the public, and his refusal to cooperate left the Commission with no option but to impose a permanent ban." The HCCC regulates hundreds of thousands of practitioners in NSW and this is just the third permanent ban it has made this year. While the ban stops Farrelly from running a healthcare service, it appears there's nothing to stop him starting up another company in another industry. He has also not been charged with any criminal offences. TRT has exploded in popularity in recent years, spruiked to men by manosphere influencers including Joe Rogan. Many men are inundated with ads on social media, with clinics promising it's a cure-all for everything from flagging energy to low libido. For one of Farrelly's former clients, retired builder Sam, the draw was the hope of alleviating the crippling pain of his osteoarthritis. An online ad led him to contact one of Farrelly's online TRT clinics, the Australian Institute of Sports Science — mistakenly thinking it was associated with the Australian Institute of Sport — and he spoke to a man who called himself "Vergel Page". Michael Farrelly's lawyers admitted to the HCCC that Vergel Page was a "sales pseudonym" for Farrelly. After a short phone consultation with a doctor, Sam paid $3,500 for a year's supply of TRT and ongoing care. But when his testosterone shot up to more than 10 times his original levels, neither Vergel Page nor the clinic would respond to him. "I had no help," Sam says. "Zero." Sam is just one of many former Farrelly clients who spoke to Background Briefing, recounting similar stories of paying thousands of dollars for TRT, only to be ghosted. Jamie, 48, developed a chronic heart issue, atrial fibrillation, after starting on injectable testosterone prescribed by a Farrelly TRT business called the Climax Clinic. He and others also received abusive messages from Farrelly after contacting him for a refund. In March last year, Farrelly put his TRT clinics into liquidation, saying there was no money left, and disappeared. So Sam and some of his other clients started organising in a Facebook group to try and find him — to get their money back, and to get some answers. They thought Farrelly was still operating in New South Wales, until one day Sam got an intriguing Facebook message: a tip that the TRT salesman, with his distinctive facial tattoos, had been spotted in a small, sleepy town in northern Tasmania. Background Briefing found that property records showed a house in the Tasmanian town was purchased in late 2023 under Farrelly's mother's name. A liquidator's report also confirmed that a car at this property, a white Mercedes-Benz, was owned by Michael Farrelly. Eyewitnesses said the TRT salesman was living at the address, too. HCCC commissioner John Tansey told the ABC that Farrelly first came onto the regulator's radar in 2022, but his move interstate, while operating under multiple businesses and aliases, made its investigation very difficult. In Australia, each state has its own individual health regulator. The national healthcare watchdog, AHPRA, currently only polices registered healthcare practitioners, such as doctors and nurses, and not unregistered practitioners like Farrelly. The NSW HCCC's investigation into Farrelly stretched out for over a year, as investigators combed through business records and even got clinical records from the TRT clinics' software provider when, the HCCC said in its decision, Farrelly stopped cooperating. Commissioner Tansey said the evidence collected during the HCCC's investigation confirmed Farrelly had facilitated the supply of prescription medication without having the qualification to do so, and that the commission was keeping an eye on him. "Any breach of the order is a criminal offence and may result in prosecution," the commissioner said. While the HCCC is only the regulator for NSW, its ban on Farrelly is also enforced by Victoria, Queensland and South Australia. And in December last year, his new home base of Tasmania passed laws to recognise other states' healthcare prohibition orders, putting an end to the possibility of him being able to practise there too. Sam thinks more needs to be done to make TRT safe, including national regulation and stricter rules on who can open up these clinics. "I know there's a lot of people on Facebook that will hate me because they don't want it regulated because they won't get their medication," he says. "I just think the whole industry needs to be regulated." He points to the fact that in January this year, while still under a temporary prohibition order from the HCCC over his existing TRT clinics, Michael Farrelly was able to open a new business that supplied testosterone replacement therapy. Company records show that the business was registered at the Tasmanian address, where the HCCC's orders didn't apply, and Farrelly was named as its director. Its directorship was only transferred to someone else this week. The ABC understands ASIC has not disqualified Farrelly from managing corporations. The liquidator of Farrelly's TRT businesses has spent more than a year trying to trace more than $15 million of transactions that flowed in and out of the companies. He's expected to report to creditors within the month.
RTÉ News
14 hours ago
- Sport
- RTÉ News
Michael Farrelly, Bori Akinola, Marcus Lawlor and Israel Olatunde set new Irish record in 4x100m relay
A new national record has been set in the men's 4x100m relay. The relay team, consisting of Michael Farrelly, Bori Akinola, Marcus Lawlor and Israel Olatunde set the record in a time of 38.92 seconds while finishing second at the World Continental Tour Meet in Switzerland on Saturday. The previous record of 39.26 was set by John McAdorey, Gary Ryan, Tom Comyns and Paul Brizzel at the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000. Previous relay recorder hold Tom Comyns took to X to congratulate the team. Congrats to the Irish 4x100m relay team who broke our 25 national record today. Delighted to see the record broken. Well done to Michael Farrelly, Bori Akinola, Marcus Lawler, Israel Olatunde. Below picture of team from 2000. @irishathletics — Tommy Comyns PhD, OLY (@comyns_tommy) June 21, 2025
