Legendary former All Black first-five Dan Carter has either been living in a bubble – or he seriously has his head in the sand.
Why? After coming under the spotlight for a positive drug test following last season’s Top 14 final, the Racing Metro 92 fly-half has said he believes rugby is doping-free sport.
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“I have huge confidence in the authoeries that keep this game clean,” Carter told Franceinfo, following his clearance of doping wrong-doing this week.
“I hold my integrity and the game’s integrity at the highest level, and have full trust that the authorizes are making sure that this game is kept clean under the anti-doping regulations – and they’ve put a lot of procedures in place to make sure that it is.”
The 112-test All Black aadded: “I have full confidence our game is played in a clean way and am confident it will continue to be that way for a long time.”
Carter said he had a corticosteroid injection for a swollen knee he picked up in Racing Metro 92’s semi-final win over Clermont. Ex-AB Joe Rokocoko and Argentinian wing Juan Imhoff also received initial positive tests – but, like Carter, were also cleared.
To believe that rugby union is 100 per cent clean is shocking, really – and seems to prove Carter is living in a world totally detached from the realities of professional sport in 2016.
A BBC documentary looking at doping in rugby union. Source: YouTube.
Last September, The Telegraph conducted a special investigation series looking at rugby union and took a deep dive into the sport’s “dangerous supplement culture.”
The Telegraph asked Nicole Sapstead, the chief executive of UK Anti-Doping, which sport she felt was most at risk of doping. Sapstead answered rugby union.
UK Anti-Doping’s sanction list backs this up. Of the 47 banned athletes, as of last September, 16 were rugby union players – along with 12 league players. Between the two codes came 81 per cent of bans handed down over the year leading up to September.
Last year, former British Lions rep Craig Chalmers described doping as “very common” after his son Sam received a two-year ban for using a banned substance; the first ever Scottish rugby player to get a doping suspension.
“The thing with doping is that it goes on, I know it goes on,” Chalmers told Herald Scotland.
“I hadn’t really thought about it that much before Sam’s case but then I began asking some people about the stuff Sam had taken and they seemed to say it was very common.”
Young rugby players seem to be embracing the use of banned supplements or substances, too.
Two years ago, Dr Glen Hagemann – the current physiotherapist for the Sharks Super Rugby team – conducted an in-depth study on more than 11,000 high school rugby players across the KwaZula-Natal region.
The results showed that 9.5 per cent of the participants had taken steroids, while 52 per cent did not consider the use of them as cheating.
Rugby union has been one of the most pro-active sports in terms with attempting to deal with doping. The International Rugby Board (IRB) launched its ‘Keep Rugby Clean’ campaign and has been applauded by the likes of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for its stance on the issue.
Former All Blacks first-five Dan Carter played in the final of the Top 14 competition in France, last season. Photo credit: Youtube.
The IRB are catching international players, too. Just last month, they handed out a four-year ban to Nambian Under-20s player Cameron McNab, who tested positive for two anabolic steroids this April.
Admittedly, in New Zealand, doping bans to rugby players have been virtually non-existent. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t happening there – or anyone else.
Maybe Carter doesn’t read the news at all, or keep an eye on the obvious trends within the sport. If so, fine.
But to be so ignorant to say that rugby’s clean is disappointing from one of the sport’s biggest names.
