With four positive tests for banned performance enhancers in last month’s Craven Week schoolboy rugby tournament, coaches and parents are asking who is to blame for the winner-takes-all mentality that drives schoolboys to take risks with their health.
With four positive tests for banned performance enhancers in last month’s Craven Week schoolboy rugby tournament, coaches and parents are asking who is to blame for the winner-takes-all mentality that drives schoolboys to take risks with their health.
Last June, Grocott's Mail revealed that certain St Andrew’s College pupils appeared to be using anabolic steroids, after teachers found the banned performance enhancers during a search of the school's dormitories. The revelation highlighted a far more widespread problem in schoolboy rugby, however, and since then, teachers and coaches say steroids use in schoolboy rugby has been on the rise. And while a former first-team rugby player at a local school blames the school hierarchy, parents, and the community for the rise in steroids use, schools say they simply don't have the resources to monitor the problem.
A local school coach told Grocott's Mail that a single test for banned performance-enhancers ranges from R1500-R3000. This was one test, for one boy, he said, and the school simply didn't have the budget for it. In addition, there are legal constraints.
"Schools have their hands tied when it comes to controlling the problem of steroids and one of them is that legally, at school, we cannot test boys without their parents’ consent," said Graeme College first team coach, Pierre Jacobs.
A few weeks back, St Andrew’s College played their part in trying to solve the problem when 40 of their boys took part in random testing for performance-enhancement and recreational drugs. The school said the tests had all come back clean.
The school's vice-principal, Günther Marx, said, "Steroids in schoolboy rugby worldwide – not just in South Africa – is a problem. We, together with a bunch of other boys' schools, have decided to embark on a campaign to have routine and targeted drug tests every year."
Director of the SA Institute for Drug-Free Sport, Dr Shuaib Manjra, has also pointed out the legal constraints and the lack of a budget as being the main factors hampering routine testing for steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.
In a recent press statement the institute's CEO, Khalid Galant, highlighted the cost to any athlete of using banned performance-enhancing substances.
“Doping is a shortcut that will not only see athletes getting caught, but is also dangerous to the athlete’s health," said Galant.
“The standard sentence is a minimum ban of two years, and not less than a year, where there are mitigating circumstances. It will be up to the tribunal to rule on the appropriate sanction.”
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For more information about doping in sport visit the website of the Institute for Drug-Free Sport, http://www.drugfreesport.org.za
Features include the online "I play fair" pledge; a downloadable version of the therapeutic use exemption form; a medication check feature, where you can immediately check whether medication you're taking contains banned substances; a downloadable list of prohibited substances and methods in sport; and a "report doping in sport" online whistlleblowing facility.
