SA rugby player Brandon Staples gets four-year ban for drugs in UK
London — A South African playing second-tier rugby union in England has been banned from all sport for four years by British anti-doping authorities after testing positive for three banned steroids, it was announced on Wednesday. UK Anti-Doping said Brandon Staples, a flanker with Championship side Yorkshire Carnegie, failed tests for metandienone, dehydrochloromethyl-Testosterone and stanozolol — the substance that saw Canada sprinter Ben Johnston stripped of his 100m gold medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Staples produced an adverse finding in a urine sample taken after a training session on August 9. He is the first player in English professional rugby union to fail a drugs test for a performance-enhancing substance since 2011. He claimed his positive test was a result of consuming a nutritional drink in SA while he was on holiday in May 2017. An independent national antidoping panel still suspended him until September 6 2021. The ban was originally imposed last November but deta...
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