Aphiwe Dyantyi has been advised by World Rugby that he has the right to lodge his appeal directly with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland instead of going through the national appeal process. CRAIG LEWIS reports.
In early January, it was confirmed that Dyantyi had opted to appeal the four-year ban for a doping offence.
This followed in the wake of the announcement in mid-December when an independent panel handed down the suspension to the Springbok wing after finding that he had ‘failed to satisfy the burden of proof to establish that his positive dope test was not intentional’.
The South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport (Saids) later released a statement to confirm and accept the decision rendered by the panel.
This outcome followed a protracted process after the shock news in 2019 when it was confirmed that Dyantyi’s mandatory B sample had come back testing positive for three banned substances following a national training camp.
READ: Dyantyi handed four-year suspension
However, it’s now been revealed that both Dyantyi and Saids have been informed he can lodge the appeal directly with CAS because, at the time of the test, he was classified as an international athlete under the jurisdiction of World Rugby.
It now remains to be seen when a hearing date may be set, and if the requisite appeal papers have been filed with CAS as yet.
According to the initial ruling handed down to Dyantyi at the end of last year, he was effectively ‘banned from participating in sport from the date of 13th August 2019 [when he was provisionally suspended] to 12th August 2023’.
At the time the ban was announced in December, Dyantyi’s agent, Gert van der Merwe, said they were shocked by the outcome.
Reports also suggested part of the defence presented was that Dyantyi had unknowingly consumed the banned substances on 30 June 2019 – two days before his urine sample was taken – when he drank from a friend’s bottle during a gym session.
