SA doping body confirm four-year ban for Bok wing Dyantyi
The athlete will only be allowed to play rugby again on 12 August 2023, after serving his period out of the game, from 2019.
Aphiwe Dyantyi has been banned for four years for doping. Picture: Getty Images
The South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport (SAIDS) confirmed on Monday morning that Springbok and Lions wing Aphiwe Dyantyi has been banned from rugby for four years because of doping.
In a statement SAIDS said they accepted the decision made by the Independent Doping Hearing Panel.
The three-person panel accepted the guilty plea of the athlete to the doping charge. They found that the athlete had failed to satisfy the burden of proof to establish that his positive dope test was not intentional. The panel relied on the framework for sanctions in the World Anti-Doping Code that outlined a sanction of four years for the doping offense in this matter.
Dyantyi has effectively been banned from participating in sport from the date of 13 August 2019 – when he was provisionally suspended – to 12 August 2023. The athlete’s rights are reserved to seek relief through lodging an appeal should he believe that he has substantive grounds for an appeal.
The 2018 World Rugby Breakthrough Player of the Year was tested randomly while in a Springbok training camp months before the Rugby World Cup last year.
The winger tested positive for metandienone, methyltestosterone and LGD-4033, which are all on the World Anti-Doping Agency banned substances list. He subsequently submitted a B sample and it also tested positive.
Dyantyi insists he never knowingly took any banned substance.
The ban follows shortly after another former Bok hooker, Chiliboy Ralepelle, received an eight-year ban for using illegal substances.
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