This is a story with stamina, the one on schoolboy steroids
It was reported in London this week that there is concern over the growing use of anabolic steroids in SA schoolboy rugby. This is not a new story.
The fact that it came in the week before the Springboks play England at Twickenham could be taken as an English writer intimating: “Man, if this is what their schoolkids are doing, what are the Boks on? No wonder they are so damn big.”
It could be, but this is not a new story. It is an incredibly sad, worrying and frightening one, a timely reminder that SA rugby has more issues than its struggles with transformation and finances.
Rugby has a drug problem. The kids who play the sport have a drug problem. The parents, coaches and selectors of schoolboy rugby teams have a drug problem.
This is not a new story. Martyn Ziegler, the chief sports reporter of The Times, wrote on Wednesday that “drug tests at 2018’s Craven Week led to six positive findings for steroids. Each of the players had taken a cocktail of banned drugs and some of them had been injected by their parents. There is also evidence that drugtaking by boys hoping to make it as professionals begins when they are as young as 14.”
Ziegler spoke to Khalid Galant, CEO of the SA Institute for Drug-Free Sport, who said the situation, which has been reported for some time, has worsened. “Unfortunately, SA rugby does have a bit of reputation and it probably starts from school age. We thought we would see a plateau or a decrease in positive tests, so it is a great concern as is the fact that each one of the boys tested positive for a cocktail of steroids,” said Galant.
By using the words “a bit of a reputation” and “probably”, Galant may have been attempting to take some of the sting out of his quotes, but his next words were chilling. “Parents and coaches also appear to be complicit. In one case a boy’s mother wrote an affidavit saying she injected the kid with ampoules as she though it was vitamin B.
“The sophisticated doper is probably the one we don’t catch; it is the stupid doper that gets caught during Craven Week. If you have taken steroids maybe three months before, you may be clean when you are tested but that doesn’t make you a clean athlete.”
Let s go back 12 years, to 2006,’when News24 ran the headline: “SA schoolboys taking steroids.” Ziegler’s story this week was headlined: “SA school rugby suffering rise in steroid use.”
In 2006, Frans van Niekerk, head coach of rugby at Paul Roos, said: “There is pressure from old boys, pressure from parents, pressure from the community, plus the internal pressure from school.”
In August 2011, The Times of Johannesburg ran the headline: “Schoolboys test positive for steroids at Craven Week.” Four kids tested positive and 47% of the participants were tested.
A hop forward to 2015 when John Mitchell, in a column for alloutrugby.com, wrote: “In SA, doping is an issue that starts at schoolboy level.”
At the beginning of 2016, SA Rugby Union CEO Jurie Roux wrote a letter to several school headmasters, warning: “The SA Rugby Union has evidence to suggest that the use of anabolic steroids among schoolchildren is on the increase
In July 2016, Rugby365 reported: “Schoolboy doping more rife than among pros.”
From June 2015 to April 2016, 18 players tested positive, two from Super Rugby. “The rest are from Currie Cup, Craven Week, Academy Week, Under-21 and Varsity Cup,” said Galant two years ago.
In 2014, three Craven Week players tested positive for steroids, five were caught in 2015, four in 2016 and three last year. The SA Institute for DrugFree Sport conducted 122 tests at Craven Week this year.
Craven Week is where the scouts go to recruit players for local and foreign teams. These kids want desperately to be professionals, and believe that to do that they have to get extra help from drugs.
They are buying drugs on the black market. They are playing with their lives.
This is not a new story.