We hope Roland Schoeman didn’t flout doping rules

Lance Armstrong may once have been the best cyclist in the world, but the revelations that he was involved in illegal doping have virtually destroyed that image and he will forever be known, to most sports fans, as a cheat.

We hope the same does not happen to South African swimming star Roland Schoeman. One of our country’s most decorated swimmers, the veteran sprinter was this week banned from all competition for a year after he tested positive for a banned substance.

It must be said, at the outset, that Schoeman is still awaiting the results on the test of his “B” sample and that the ruling may be overturned.

The test was carried out in May last year and detected traces of a banned hormone and metabolic moderator. The ban will take effect from the date of the test, meaning Schoeman can be back competing from May this year.

However, experts believe it is likely that Schoeman will miss the Tokyo Olympics this year because the SA swimming trials – on which team selections are largely based – take place in April.

If that indeed happens, it will be a sad end to an illustrious career and one which has given sports fans much to cheer.

The 39-year-old Schoeman earned gold (4x100m freestyle), silver (100m freestyle) and bronze (50m freestyle) medals at the 2004 Athens Games and he turned out at four successive editions of the Olympics between 2000 and 2012, although he did not qualify for the 2016 Rio Games.

The lure of one more Olympics has been driving Schoeman, who should have retired some years ago. And, while that passion is to be commended, we hope he didn’t try to bend the rules in pursuit of that dream.

We have so few heroes in this country, we can ill afford to lose any.

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