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In order to play for a South African national team, or compete at an international level in an individual sport, you have to undergo regular testing. That’s part of what made the allegations that several Springbok players had tested positive for cocaine recently so hard to believe.

On that occasion, Springbok management, the governing body, and captain Siya Kolisi came out firing to shoot down the allegations.

It seems to have gone rather quiet on that front, with Rapport, who were seemingly ready to publish the allegations, appearing to back down amidst rumours of a legal interdict by SA Rugby.

What we do know, via an official statement by Khalid Galant, the CEO of the SA Institute for Drug-Free Sport (SAIDS) to Rapport, is that drug and alcohol abuse in South African sport has increased to the point where SAIDS has “turned to specialists in drug addiction in an attempt to deal with the problem”.

Below via City Press:

Galant [said] they had seen an increase in “suspicious” test results during tests conducted in bio-bubbles and after lockdown regulations were relaxed.

Suspicious tests are blood or urine tests which detect signs of prohibited substances, illegal drugs or alcohol abuse, but which fall below the threshold of a positive test or adverse analytical finding.

Cocaine, for example, must be present in an athlete’s urine at a concentration of more than 10 nanograms/ml to result in an adverse analytical finding.

Galant said that these “suspicious” tests showed signs of cocaine and marijuana, as well as binge drinking. It’s laughable that marijuana is still prohibited but that’s a story for another day.

To be clear, the results were not attributed to any single sporting code:

SA Rugby has also had discussions about the issue of substance abuse in the sport even though no rugby player has tested positive, and even though none of the suspicious tests from the past two years have been found in rugby players’ samples.

The emotional toll of months spent living in bio-bubbles during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic was put forward as one reason for the test results reported by SAIDS.

Andrew Breetzke, the CEO of the SA Cricketers’ Association (SACA), said he had no doubts that COVID-19 and the bio-bubble stints had “contributed to the increase in substance abuse”. He added that in cricket, test results show alcohol abuse was the major issue.

Of the 29 SAIDS tests that picked up violations (testing positive for a banned substance or missing a scheduled test) between April 1, 2021 and March 31, 2022, anabolic steroids led the way.

In tests carried out after March 31 of this year, Galant said tests had picked up on illegal drugs.

[source:citypress]