Proudfoot defends South Africa over doping
Just four days out from his side’s first World Cup fixture against New Zealand, South Africa assistant coach Matt Proudfoot faced questions over whether Springbok rugby had a doping crisis.
Last month, it was announced that South Africa wing Aphiwe Dyantyi tested positive for multiple anabolic steroids and metabolites in a sample taken on July 2. World Rugby’s Breakthrough Player of the Year, who scored six tries in 13 Tests in 2018, has pleaded his innocence.
However, the South African Institute for Drug Free Sport revealed that a B sample confirmed the presence of three banned substances: met an die none, methyl testosterone and LGD-4033. Formally charged, Dyantyi faces a ban of up to four years. Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus has said he did not consider him for his 31-man World Cup squad due to a hamstring injury.
News of Dyantyi’s violation arrived 11 months after last October’s revelations that six schoolboys tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs over 122 tests conducted during South Africa’s Craven Week festival for under-18 players.
Pressed on whether rugby has deep-seated doping problems, both across the world and in South Africa specifically, Proudfoot initially outlined his desire to leave such questions to “administrators”.
However, after stressing that “the image of South African rugby is portrayed by what you see on the field – we’re a competitive nation,” he explained the extent to which his squad have been tested this summer. “We are tested weekly,” Proudfoot added. “Probably six to eight players would be tested on an offday basis every week prior to one of our camps that we’ve been on right the way through the Rugby Championship into our preparation.”
Later yesterday in Tokyo, World Rugby chief executive Brett Gosper voiced his belief that “we don’t have an institutional or systematic culture of doping” at the elite end of the sport.
Ross Tucker is one of the sports scientists involved in World Rugby’s continuing research into the potential for reform on high tackles and shoulder charges in an attempt to lower concussive incidents.
He took to Twitter yesterday to address the question of “does South African sport have a doping problem?” And he suggested that there was a societal doping issue in South Africa and that anti-doping protocols in team sports generally can be “hampered by a lack of resources”.