Bad times for rugby. According to the director of the analysis department of the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD), Françoise Lasne, this sport would be the most affected by cheating. Questioned as part of a Senate commission of inquiry into the effectiveness of the fight, the scientist revealed her figures. They are perplexing.
“I was interested in sports for which at least 400 samples reached us (394 for basketball) in 2012, in order to have reliable statistics,” explains Françoise Lasne. Eight disciplines correspond to this criterion. If we take into account all the banned molecules present on the World Anti-Doping Agency list, the sport with the highest percentage of positive cases is rugby. Next comes football, then athletics, triathlon, basketball, cycling, handball and swimming.
In detail, rugby represents 10,4% of abnormal results in 2012, behind athletics (12,6%) and cycling (14,9%). But, with 22 positive cases out of 588 samples taken, it is the sport giving “the highest percentage of positive cases. »
In French rugby, the AFLD announcement was initially received as a bad joke. Federation, National League and players' union said they were “shocked”. The three institutions denounce, in a joint press release, a “conflation between abnormal analysis results and proven cases of doping. »
Beyond these figures, necessarily subject to certain doubts, the declarations of Françoise Lasne and the statistics of the AFLD shed very instructive light on the reality of controls from one sport to another. Unsurprisingly, cycling appears by far to be the most controlled discipline in 2012, with 1812 samples analyzed, ahead of athletics with 1164 samples, rugby (588), football (548) and handball (452).
The geolocation of athletes, which allows authorities to know in advance where to find them for an hour each day to subject them to unannounced checks, is general for cyclists and all high-level athletes in individual sports, tennis included. . In rugby, it concerns one player per club and all internationals. In football, one player per club, but internationals are not monitored.
Furthermore, cycling, athletics and swimming regularly increase the number of unannounced blood tests. In football, urine sampling is the rule, but we know that it is now quite unreliable. In tennis, only 10% of tests are carried out out of competition. The statistics for this latter sport leave you speechless: 2.150 tests worldwide in one season, including 195 urinary and 21 blood tests out of competition. Three times nothing.
Rugby can declare itself “shocked” and cry injustice, but the fight against doping is clearly not a priority. But let its leaders rest assured: they are not the bottom of the class.
