Dyanti drug ban is worst way to end bad year for the Boks
IF 2019 was a year of glory and triumph for a truly multi-racial South Africa side, 2020 has been a complete non event for the Springboks and it ended in a typically downbeat manner earlier this week when Aphiwe Dyanti was finally handed a fouryear ban for taking performance enhancing drugs. They knew it was coming but that doesn’t make it any less painful.
As you will recall Dyanti was the poster boy for South African rugby, the World Rugby Breakthrough player of 2018, and at the time considered even more of a prospect than Cheslin Kolbe who was making the transition from Sevens to fifteens with nobody quite sure if that would work.
Dyanti’s two tries for South Africa in their remarkable 36-34 win over New Zealand in Wellington that summer sealed his status and all seemed well with the world, but it all started to go wrong last July when he tested positive for methandienone, methyltestosterone and LGD-4033, which are all on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s banned substances list.
He was informed about the doping violation in August 2019 while preparing for the World Cup with the Springboks and although his departure from the sqaud was originally explained away with a fictitious story about an injury issue, the truth eventually came out.
Dyanti claimed the substances must have been in a drink he was offered by a friend while working out in the gym – an explanation that has been heard many times before at such disciplinary hearings around the world over the years – but that has cut little ice with the South African antidoping authorities although the 25-year-old Lions wing could still appeal.
After confirming his ban, the South African Institute for DrugFree Sport said it wanted to remind athletes to “exercise caution when using sports supplements” and evaluate the risk of products which claim to help gain muscle quickly.
Indeed. Those with long vice-like memories will recall that back in 2010 Chiliboy Ralapelle and Bjorn Basson were sent home from the Springboks tour of Britain for testing positive for methylhexanamine which SARU subsequently concluded might have been inadvertently included in diet supplement Anabolic Nitro Nitric Oxide Extreme Energy Surge which was given out by team officials.
Extraordinarily a public apology was issued to both players instead of the anticipated ban although there was no explanation as to why other players taking the same drink didn’t also test positive.
Ralapelle responded to his let off by then testing positive for the anabolic steroid drostanolone in 2014 while playing for Toulouse for which he eventually received a two-year ban and completed a hattrick – of sorts – last January when he tested positive for zeranol for which, earlier this year, he received an eight-year ban.
All extremely bad PR for Boks rugby especially as the rugby world has always – wrongly or rightly – had its suspicions about doping in South African rugby. These things usually die down pretty quickly when there is so much great action and rugby heroics on the pitch to report. The sporting public is only interested in doping up to a point.
Except this year there has been no diversionary action. South Africa’s last Test match was on November 2, 2019 when they won the World Cup final in Japan. The vanquished – England – in contrast have by hook or by crook played nine Tests since then.
But South Africa? Absolutely nothing, no opportunity for the victors to pull on the green jersey in front of home fans, no welcome economic boost for SARU, no upping their appearance fees to All Black levels for the normal Autumn tour. No glory. No dosh. Nothing.
Their next scheduled match is against Namibia on July 3, their warm-up for the British and Irish Lions. That will be 20 months without Test rugby, their longest period without international rugby since the final throes of the apartheid boycott (1989-92) when they were still persona non grata.
Covid-19 has, of course, been largely responsible for that and it has hit different rugby communities to varying degrees but the Springboks also surely shot themseles in the foot when they decided not to compete in the Rugby Championship in Australia where biosecure camps and pods had been set up at great trouble and expense.
They argued strongly that they had been unable to prepare properly – which is true enough but this has been an unusual year to say the least – and that they would not be competitive and worthy of their famous jerseys.
This despite the fact that in addition to their home-based players they could have called on platoons of brilliantly talented overseas players in Europe and Japan who were in a state of peak fitness with their clubs and ready to answer the call.
Argentina – much worse affected by Covid than South Africa and subject to one of the fiercest and longest lockdowns in the world – took the opposite view. Despite no rugby whatsoever, lockdown, endless quarantine camps and nearly 20 positive tests within the squad at one stage or another, Argentina decided this was actually the time – more than ever – to honour the jersey and fly the flag.
Armed with that mindset and determination they attended the Rugby Championship and came away with an historic first win over New Zealand and two draws on the bounce against Australia. South Africa, meanwhile, will want to quickly erase 2020 from their minds. It’s been a crushing disappointment and anti-climax.