Related cases:
- SARU 2011 SARU vs Mahlatse Chiliboy Ralepelle & Bjorn Basson
January 27, 2011 - SAIDS 2019_18 SAIDS vs Mahlatse Chiliboy Ralepelle
June 25, 2020
In April 2014 World Rugby has reported an anti-doping rule violation against the South African rugby player Mahlatse Chiliboy Ralepelle after his A and B samples, provided out-of-competition in March 2014, tested positive for the prohibited substance drostanolone. After notification a provisional suspension was ordered. The Athlete filed a statement in his defence and he was heard for the World Rugby Judicial Committee.
Previously the Athlete was reprimanded on 27 January 2011 by the South-African Rugby Union after he tested positive for the prohibited substance Methylhexaneamine (dimethylpentylamine) related to contaminated supplements.
The Athlete’s B sample was frozen in a bottle. When the bottle in the laboratory was placed into a Berlinger machine to open the glass bottle it broke. The largest portion of the frozen sample was recovered, put into a container, defrosted and analysed.
The Athlete denied the anti-doping violation and stated that he underwent surgery in France for a serious knee injury in February 2014 and had used nutritional supplements in the week before the doping test. After surgery no drostanolone was administered and analysis by an independent laboratory ruled out the Athlete’s supplements as possible sources of the drostanolone. Investigations on the Athlete’s behalf failed to reveal the source of the drostanolone.
The Athlete argued that there was a departure of the ISL: due to the broken bottle the integrity of the B sample had been so comprised that the result of that analysis must be dismissed.
Considering the evidence the Judicial Committee finds that the Athlete failed to prove that the reported departure could reasonably have caused the positive test result and rules to their comfortable satisfaction that it did not cause the positive test result. The Athlete did not submit that there were any grounds for imposing a reduced sanction.
The Committee also reviewed the written 2010 decision of the South-African Rugby Union and disagrees with the conclusion of No Fault and imposing only a reprimand on the Athlete. Because it would be unfair to rewrite the 2010 decision, the Committee holds that the 2010 violation was not a first anti-doping rule violation. As a result the current violation counts as a first anti-doping rule violation for sanctioning.
The Committee is also comfortably satisfied that World Rugby discharged the burden and established that the Athlete committed an anti-doping rule violation.
Therefore the World Rugby Judicial Committee decides on 16 June 2015 to impose a 2 year period of ineligibility on the Athlete starting on the date of the provisional suspension, i.e. on 10 April 2014.
