Doping control in Seychelles’ sports-An alarming situation! |14 August 2010

This is the message the Seychelles National Anti-Doping Commission (SNADC) is sending out once again after more Seychellois athletes have been returning positive tests.

The situation is alarming and it could have a negative impact on the future of Seychelles’ sports. In less than three months of testing – from May 28 to August 11 – the SNADC has registered 29 positive cases out of 111 tests.

For years, many have speculated that Seychellois sportsmen and women were not immune to delving into doping to get ahead of the competition, but these latest figures are frightening for a small country like ours.

But how could this be? Seychellois athletes know very well that sports and doping don’t go hand in hand. But still some try their luck at challenging the system. Although some have tried to manipulate the system in the past and were successful, it is very unlikely that they will have the same result nowadays.

Of the 29 positive cases, 27 are men and two women. Football is the sport with the highest number of positive cases – 21 – and for 18 of them this is their first violation. For the other three, it’s their second violation. A total of 63 tests were done in football.

Altogether the number of first-time offenders from May 28 to August 11 is 22, while there are seven second-time offenders, all coming from six sports – basketball, boxing, cycling, football, table tennis and volleyball.

Basketball is the sport with the second-highest number of positive tests – four – two women and two men. Boxing, cycling, table tennis and volleyball have one each.

Of the 29 positive cases, nine – five in football, three in basketball and one in cycling – fall in the refusal column. While eight of them are men, the only woman who refused to take a doping test is a basketballer.

Only badminton did not return any positive result in four tests on two women and two men.

The SNADC has been doing random, target and out-of-competition tests. All out-of-competition tests have been done this month in badminton, boxing and table tennis. Random tests have been going on in basketball and football since May. They were done only on cyclists in June.

As for target tests in competitions, they started in June and have going on until now in volleyball, basketball and football.

While THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) remains the most popular drug taken by those who have tested positive, four athletes – three men and a woman – were caught for opium abuse.

We all know that Seychellois athletes often speak publicly and curse sportsmen and women who take performance enhancing drugs. So why then do the figures keep rising here?

Compared to last year when there were 21 positive cases, including two TUE (therapeutic use exemptions) out of 209 tests from February to December, the recently released figures are eye-catching, but for the wrong reasons.

Sportsmen and women who are not serious don’t need to dirty Seychelles sports, while others are striving hard to bring it on a par with the best in the world.

If something is not done quickly to remedy the situation, or sportsmen and women themselves don’t come to terms with the fact that they should quit taking banned substances, Seychelles’ sports will suffer in the long run.

Already two female basketballers called to the country’s pre-selection for next year’s 8th Indian Ocean Island Games (IOIG) have been handed bans.

More male and female athletes pre-selected to represent Seychelles on home soil next year in the IOIG are doing drugs and they know who they are. They know that they risk being caught, and as a result coaches will miss some of their best talents for the Games. This is not what we want to see.

It is time, then, for sportsmen and women to look at themselves in the mirror and ask themselves if what they are doing is right. 

Why have they agreed to play their sports by the rules that govern them but at the same time don’t want to comply with those for doping?

Strange, isn’t it?
Let’s put all the pieces of the puzzle together to get the big picture and make the athletes understand why they should not do drugs.

Remember the euphoria of an international win doesn’t last long if one has taken recreational drugs and performance-enhancing drugs.

Just ask male weightlifter Charles Siméon, who was stripped of all his medals – three golds with a total lift of 235kg (100kg in snatch and 135kg in clean and jerk) in the junior category as well as two silvers and one bronze in the senior category of the 69kg division of the African Weightlifting Championship in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2002.

Female weightlifter Brenda Lozaique is still serving a four-year ban after testing positive for metandienone during the 19th Men’s and 8th Women’s African Weightlifting Championship held in the Strand, Cape Town, South Africa, from May 12-18, 2008.

We don’t need any bad publicity for Seychelles’ sports.

G. G.