Doping in rugby is everyone’s problem

In Wednesday morning’s edition of The Star, it was reported that “rugby, followed by power lifting and boxing, were the most doped-out sports in South Africa last year”.

Between April last year and March this year, the SA Institute for Drug-Free Sport stated in its annual report that doping has increased by 178% with anabolic steroids being the preferred drug of choice across all sports, comprising 42% of positive tests. There were 51 positive tests compared to 18 the year before, with the latter figure arising out of 2 284 samples. Other sports where positive tests were recorded were wrestling, netball, rowing, cricket, triathlon, soccer, cycling and athletics.

507 rugby players were tested in the period covered by the report, with six positive tests recorded. Khalid Galant, from Drug-Free Sport, said the institute believed there was an increase in positive tests due to the widespread availability of sports supplements that contained banned substances such as anabolic steroids, hormones and stimulants. Galant told The Star that “other than scaling up our awareness and education programmes over the next year, the priority remains to have supplements regulated and we are engaging with key role-players to make this happen”.

With rugby becoming ever more professional and with TV money now trickling into both university and school rugby, ensuring that the game is played clean is of paramount importance in maintaining rugby’s spirit as a past-time. It is those players on the verge of entering the professional system, those at school, university and at age-group level, who most feel the pressure of trying to succeed and enjoy the rewards of the game at the highest level. They are the ones most at risk of falling foul of the strict but necessary regulations which safeguard sport in this country.

It is the responsibility of those in positions of influence to ensure that all and sundry are educated about the effects of drug and supplement use. It would be extremely unfortunate if the next Frans Steyn or Victor Matfield were to miss at minimum two seasons of competition at a time in their careers when they should be honing their skills instead of casting off the shadow of being known as a “doper”. If the rules are being broken knowingly, however, extreme censure is the only solution to deter such behaviour.

The tough part is trying to distinguish between the two, which is why prevention is better than a cure.