SAIDS holds the line but proper doping policing in SA sport needs more boots on the ground

Khalid Galant, chief executive of the SA Institute for Drug Free Sports.

In the murky world of global anti-doping, the South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport (SAIDS) has every reason to fail. By all logical metrics, local drug testing should be in a state of paralysis.

Following the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) decision to revoke the accreditation of the Bloemfontein laboratory, South Africa has been left without a single domestic testing facility.

Every single sample collected from Cape Town to Polokwane must be packed, sealed, and flown across the globe to certified laboratories in Qatar, Barcelona, or Poland. Operating under the crushing weight of a volatile rand-dollar exchange rate, SAIDS is essentially fighting a First-World War with a third-world budget.

Yet, against all institutional odds, the regulatory body is doing a remarkably decent job.