Drug Free Sport New Zealand is to abandon its current testing of 1st XV Top Four rugby tournament players, after no positive tests were recorded over three years.

The testing was limited – with only eight players tested on the first day of the tournament each year from 2017-19. The tournament is not being held this year because of Covid-19.

The testing was part of DFSNZ’s educational programme called “Good Clean Sport” over the three years, attended by thousands of school athletes.

DFSNZ has had the programme independently reviewed and decided to expand the education side but stop the Top Four rugby testing.

READ MORE:
* The Bust: Athlete XYZ and the legacy of NZ’s biggest steroids investigation
* Tough anti-doping measures against low-level ‘weekend warriors’ may be coming to an end
* Sports supplement labelling not always accurate, Timaru sports students told
* Teen athlete banned over sports drink
* Drug Free Sport NZ’s testing regime ineffective in fight against doping

The independent review, carried out by lawyer and three-time Winter Olympian Ben Sandford concluded that the limited testing at Top Four level should be moved away from schools into the high performance arena.

The review made nine recommendations, aimed at getting an appropriate balance between anti-doping education and deterrence in the school sport environment.

“In the face of growing risks internationally in school sport, our goal has always been to support our up and coming athletes so that they continue the culture of clean sport and high integrity in New Zealand,” DFSNZ chief executive Nick Paterson said.

“This review has been a great opportunity to step back and consider our programme within the context of issues around athlete welfare and school sport, in line with our original goals. We want to improve the health, wellbeing, and good decision making of our young athletes, not add unnecessary pressure.”

Last year more than 5000 athletes attended DFSNZ’s clean sport workshops.

“As well as working with high performance athletes, we ran 85 workshops which were attended by nearly 2500 school students. The workshops are presented by current or former athletes; and are focused on helping young sportspeople to make good decisions,” Paterson said.

“But while clean sport education was DFSNZ’s original goal, naturally attention became focused on the small number of limited-screen tests that DFSNZ conducted (eight tests per year) within the schools 1st XV tournament. This testing programme will continue, but within the high performance environment such as sport-specific academies where support staff already have long experience of drug testing.

“We want all young people have a quality sport experience and participate in a fair environment”, Paterson said.

“We will continue to build our education programme on strong collaboration and partnerships with national sports organisations, players associations and school sports organisations.”

In his review, Sandford, who is chairman of the Wada Athlete Committee, said DFSNZ’s approach had worked in so far as the objective of it was to support and protect school age rugby players that participate in the Top Four tournament.

“Although a number of concerns were raised about the current approach during the review, and although the review recommends changing the approach going forward this does not take away from the fact that school rugby players have been receiving anti-doping education, there have been no positives tests during the three years the programme has run, and it has been stated that school rugby players are leaving school with a better knowledge of anti-doping that their peers in other sporting codes,” he said.