Heyns' stance on drugs rules out Games trip

Swimming: World's best-ever breaststroker turns her back on a sport in doping's shadow

A few weeks ago, Penny Heyns put a cross in the column marked "No" and returned the invitation to sender. The South African, the best women's breaststroke swimmer the world has seen, had passed up a freebie to attend the 2004 Olympics.

A few weeks ago, Penny Heyns put a cross in the column marked "No" and returned the invitation to sender. The South African, the best women's breaststroke swimmer the world has seen, had passed up a freebie to attend the 2004 Olympics.

Heyns retired from the sport in 2001, after a career that brought her three Olympic medals, including two golds in Atlanta '96 - the only time a female breaststroker has done the double - 14 world records and celebrity status in her country. She has served on swimming's governing body and remains one of the most respected athletes of all time. However, for Heyns, the sport, and the Olympics, no longer appeals.

In her recently released autobiography, Heyns explains her dismay at what she feels is the rampant use of banned substances.

"In 1992, when I was part of South Africa's first Olympics in 32 years, I didn't know what to expect from the Games. I saw people putting their bodies through the mill and wondered, 'What's the point, why does an Olympic medal mean so much?' But I then went to live in the United States, and by the time Atlanta came round I realised the importance of the Games, and the reaction to my double gold blew me away. But, when I arrived at Sydney 2000 it was as if the blinkers had been removed. For the first time, I noticed things going on around me. I was 25, and no longer so innocent that I thought every élite swimmer was 'clean'. Yet I believed the vast majority were... until I got to Sydney.

"I never saw actual evidence of drug-taking, no needles being inserted. But I listened to the locker-room stories and put two and two together. I looked at certain individuals, at their backgrounds and at the times they were producing, and thought, 'Whoa, something's going on here'. Certain swimmers who, two years previously, had caused me to wonder how they had ever been selected for some teams, were winning medals. Even gold medals. One country in particular had swimmers who seemed to come out of nowhere to contest the medals, carving seconds, not fractions of seconds, off their personal bests.

"One night, a male swimmer from the above country was boldly making his presence felt. 'Tomorrow I am going to win, I am going to beat them all... I will win the gold,' he boasted. I thought to myself, 'What is this guy on?' as in, 'What planet is he living on?' I knew his times were nowhere near good enough. The next thing, he won the gold medal... and tested negative," she writes.

Heyns, a strong Christian, lived in a state of near-paranoia for the last six years of her career, determined not to fall foul of the system. "I never wanted to stand in front of the doping commission, for any reason, and have to explain what I was doing there. It was after the Australian world champion Sam Riley tested positive for a stimulant after taking a wrong headache tablet in 1995 that I took control of everything that went into my body.

"I would not even trust regular GPs to administer my medication. I don't recommend this, but I was raised on drinking a tablespoon of water with a few drops of eucalyptus oil. Most people inhale it, but I would drink it. It tasted foul but was legal. I am asthmatic and it is said to clear the mucus from the system and open the chest, but whether or not it worked is a matter of debate.

"From 1995, I did not even trust anyone to look after my water bottle while I was in the pool. Not my coach, not my mother, not my manager. For what if they turned their head for a split-second? Someone else might have spiked it, and I chose to err on the side of caution. Whether training or at a swim meet, I'd break the seal on a new bottle of water or energy drink, consume as much as possible and throw it away. I'd never put it down at poolside, swim a few lengths and sip from it again."

Despite her celebrity status and personal friendship with Nelson Mandela, Heyns has a strained relationship with South Africa's swimming hierarchy, and she was even left off the 1998 Commonwealth Games team, a period when she was courted by Canada to switch allegiance.

In her book the South African swimming body comes in for heavy criticism. "Shortly before Barcelona '92, a few of us felt a cold coming on. The medical officer gave us something and the next day we were tested and something showed up. We were told, 'Don't worry, come back tomorrow'. Which we did, and tested negative. That's how naïve we all were.

"By 2000 we were more worldly. I was ordered to a training camp in Durban, where our team would be tested to prove we were 'clean'. When I arrived for my test, I was taken aside and told by the team doctor: 'You don't have to provide a sample... You get tested often enough... We don't intend testing you'. I didn't really know what to think. After all, proving to be 'clean' was the object of the exercise.

"Later, after mulling over the tone in which the doctor spoke to me, I became angry. Questions raced through my mind: why didn't he want to [test]? I wasn't the only world-class athlete in Durban going to Sydney. Had he said the same to the others? Did he think perhaps that I had something to hide - after all, a year before I had broken 11 world records in eight weeks. Were they trying to 'protect' me?"

Heyns realises there will always be cheats. "In Nebra-ska, where I grew up very quickly, there were swimmers who regularly smoked can-nabis. When it came to being tested, they would drink two litres of cranberry juice shortly before providing a urine sample. This even happened during the high-profile national collegiate championships. Sure, it's a much lower level of drug abuse, but the swimmers know of a way to beat the procedures. Which makes me realise that if cannabis can be masked, what about much more sophisticated performance-enhancing drugs?"

Gary Lemke is co-author of Penny Heyns's autobiography