Text: Jazz Kuschke. Article from the May 2103 issue of Ride Magazine.
The past 18 months have seen the rise of some horrifying rumours and even scarier statistics about the use of performance-enhancing drugs among school athletes.
In April 2012, the South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport (SAIDS) announced a two-year ban for two players who had tested positive for banned anabolic steroids at the 2011 Craven Week. This incident sparked a testing-and-doping education drive in high-profile rugby schools, and, late last year, the institute released a report stating that 18 out of 62 scholars independently tested over six months had tested positive for drugs “so dangerous they could lead to death”.
Shocking? Perhaps. Surprising? Not very. Combine the pressures of televised derby games, sponsors, pushy parents and possible pro contracts with big allowances and largely unrestricted Internet access and you have a recipe for danger. Add to this the high-profile, highly paid first-team coaches who seem to come straight out of a Hollywood sports movie and, well…
In terms of prestige, player numbers and marketing value, rugby undoubtedly overshadows every other school sport, and so the spotlight on doping hasn’t really moved off the field, but only the naive would assume that the problem is restricted to turf. Cycling, it seems, is infected too.
We are tarnished
“Doping in schools is not exclusive to rugby or to scholar athletes,” says Khalid Galant, CEO of SAIDS. “A large number of teenagers are participating in doping activities, predominantly for the aesthetic appeal of a bigger and more muscular body.”
“Really, we should expect anything,” says Attie Koekemoer from Anatomic sportswear, sponsor and organizer of the upcountry events in the Spur National MTB Schools League. “You know, parents will call you up to ask what the course is like, whether their child should bring his 26er or 29er, hardtail or dually – there’s major pressure to perform.” He adds, “If they’re spending R60000 – plus on bicycles for their kids, what else are they not spending money on?”
Koekemoer is quick to qualify his finger-pointing by saying that he’s seen all sorts of cheating and rule-breaking in school events. “Average kids racing, kids being brought to race for schools they don’t attend, and, and…”
Dr Jon Patricios, board member of the South African Sports Medicine Association and physician to Team MTN-Qhubeka, believes that school athletes are sourcing their own products. “Every week I have parents who find their kids are taking steroids, and those schools with testing programmes have had a number of positives countrywide.”
According to Patricios, anabolic steroids are most easily attainable “from gym trainers, under the counter at supplement shops, and from schoolmates”. He adds that steroid use at schools has quickly evolved from isolated cases to a ubiquitous problem, especially among rugby players. “My young patients tell me that most of the products are obtained via a ballooning black market in the gyms. Some of the ampules they’ve shown me are intended for veterinary use and are imported from Asia and Central America. But, in the now-tainted world of school sport, apparently anything justifies a first-team jersey, the coach’s approval, glowing parental pride and the school’s adulation.”
‘A large number (we think up to 50%) of schoolboy steroid users are not doing it for performance enhancement but for image.’ – Dr Jon Patricios
Who controls what?
Unfortunately, then, the question is not whether it’s happening in cycling too, but how to deal with it. According to Deon Steyn, president of the recently formed South African Schools Cycling (SASC) and one of seven official UCI MTB commissaires in South Africa, the UCI prescribes rules only for licensed riders of age 17 and up, meaning that Cycling South Africa (CSA) is the custodian for the younger age groups.
“The word ‘schools’ only appears once in the constitution of CSA whereby it can allow schools as associate members. It does not appear in the UCI’s constitution at all. The impact of this is that CSA does not control cycling at school level,” says Steyn.
The implication is that riders participating in a national event may be subject to testing, but the UCI won’t include under-17s in random testing or biological passport programmes, and these riders can’t legally be tested at school events. “All school sport is controlled by the Schools Act,” says Steyn. “What we need is for CSA and the Department of Education to negotiate an agreement on the management of school cycling and to clearly outline who is responsible for what.”
It’s not that there isn’t control and structure. Quite the contrary, explains Koekemoer: “We have come up with a unique set of complete rules. Schools expect very clear racing and points-scoring rules and expect to be part of an official league. But it doesn’t cover doping. You can’t just go up to a child and demand a blood or urine sample.”
Schooling the schoolers
Politics aside, Koekemoer believes much of the ‘cheating’ can be put down to a lack of education. “Many simply don’t know the rules of cycling,” he says. “It’s our task – the responsibility of the series – to teach these rules. Schools that have more than 10 riders are now required to have a permanent manager. That’s the person picking up the numbers, coming to the briefings and so on. He or she is the person with responsibility.”
The SASC’s Steyn has started a series of workshops to educate these managers on the rules of racing and to make them aware of doping, to help them to see the signs of abuse and to understand the ramifications, least of which are a potential two-year ban and a tainted reputation.
Warning signs
Is your child using performance-enhancing drugs? According to Dr Jon Patricios, these are the five things parents should look out for:
- any dramatic change in his/her body shape or performance
- sudden and unusual acne breakout
- swollen nipples
- stretch marks
- sudden mood swings, bad attitude and/or aggression.
Like any other drug, addictive performance-enhancing drugs have physiological and psychological side effects.
“Some stimulants can cause heart arrhythmias and can even affect the body’s ability to regulate temperature,” explains Patricios, “while others – steroids, for example – can lead to the development of serious conditions, such as high cholesterol, renal failure, liver complications and stroke.
“Psychological side effects include aggression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, depression, a break with reality, mania, irritability, and changes in levels of serotonin, a transmitter found in the brain that calms the nervous system.”
SAIDS CEO Galant believes that parents need to realise the risks and consequences associated with their children taking banned substances:
“You wouldn’t inject your child with heroin, so why on earth would you, as a parent, condone the use of banned steroids, which are just as dangerous?”
To test, or not to test?
The great irony is that scholars may legally be subjected to random testing for recreational drugs and yet fall through the performance-enhancing-drug-detection net because testing is not routinely performed at schools. Over the past three years, the SAIDS Education Team has been hard at work developing bespoke anti-doping programmes targeted at young athletes in various sports codes,including workshops for coaches, managers and, since 2012, has also included school governing bodies, headmasters and school sports administrators in its target audience.
In 2013, SAIDS introduced a more intensive programme aimed at cutting down on doping and navigating some of the restrictions on dope tests at underage level. More than 50 schools are affiliated to the I Play Fair schools programme, and all participants will be reviewed annually with a view to recruiting additional schools each year.
‘In the now-tainted world of school sport, apparently anything justifies a first-team jersey, the coach’s approval, glowing parental pride and the school’s adulation.’
A single test could cost as much as R3000. Some of the funding for the tests will come from the Department of Sport and Recreation and the National Lotto fund, and to sign up to the programme costs nothing.
In essence, what SAIDS is trying to create is a credibility structure. It is hoped that the unions and talent scouts will recognise this and focus their attention on the ‘clean’ schools.
Koekemoer also intends to increase controls during the Schools Series this year. “We have to work through the schools, with the parents. When they enter their kids into their school’s MTB programme or sign up for the series, they sign certain indemnities. We want them to take responsibility and also allow us to test.”
Where to from here?
The question now becomes a rather sensitive and philosophical one. “I didn’t know’ and ‘I made a mistake’ are not acceptable defences for a licensed rider, or any athlete for that matter, who tests positive. Should there be leniency for underage riders, and should parents sign an agreement allowing their children to be tested on suspicion they might be abusing drugs? Should parents risk ruining their child’s sporting career (and schooling, should they be expelled) before it’s started, or should they rather deal with the problem at home?
Current legislation puts schools in charge of disciplinary action should a scholar test positive, but SAIDS, of course, is now available for consultation and guidance.
“A ban from the sport for a period of time is a start,” says Steyn. “School community service, perhaps. If it emerges that they were involved, or knew and turned a blind eye, I think the coaches of kids who test positive should be banned for life, though.”
How to defend your sport
Part of the ethos of the MTB School Series is that riders are not only ambassadors for their schools, but also for the sport of cycling. Here’s how to defend your sport when antagonised.
- Globally, cycling is the one sport that’s so often in the doping spotlight simply because it is the sport which publicises its positive tests.
- Cite Operacion Puerto (Operation Mountain Pass), the code name for the 2006 operation against notorious Spanish doctor, Eufemiano Fuentes. It led to the banning of, among many others, Alejandro Valverde and Ivan Basso, but hardly picked up by the media were all the other athletes from other sporting codes who were implicated, such as big names from football clubs Barcelona and Real Madrid as well as tennis players and track athletes.
- Cite the statistics on steroid use among schoolboy rugby players.
- In South Africa, we now have the biological passport system, whereby professional cyclists are tested at random for a time. In this period, the blood test results are collated, and variances and inconsistencies can easily be picked up, which could lead to further, more specific testing. No other sport in South Africa has implemented this system.
- Cycling is the most regulated sport globally, especially among endurance sports. Many other niche sports are not nearly as regulated. The law of averages states that the more tests, the more positives.
Get more online: South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport. To find out more about SAIDS and its schools initiative and to download the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) code of prohibited substances, which allows you to search for the ‘prohibited’ or ‘not-prohibited’ status of a medication or substance in a supplement, go to www.drugfreesport.org.za.
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