Why sports stars mix with drugs

Ex-swimming star Geoff Huegill has made a public apology after being allegedly caught with cocaine.

DURING his suspension after testing positive to cocaine in 2006, disgraced rugby star Wendell Sailor would hear news reports of other athletes taking drugs, and wait for the inevitable.

"Every time, on the radio or TV, the reporter would be talking about someone failing a drug test and somewhere, somehow they'd have to get in 'Johns, Cousins ... ' and I'd just wait for the third one ... 'and Sailor'."

As the media frenzy surrounding the cases of rugby league pin-up Andrew Johns, AFL great Ben Cousins and dual international Sailor showed, the public is fascinated by stories of sports stars brought crashing to Earth by their own human frailty. The bigger the name, the better.

If Sailor had been listening to the news this week he would have heard reports of swimmer Geoff Huegill's arrest for alleged cocaine possession as well as the death of tragic rugby league figure Ryan Tandy.

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IN TROUBLE: Geoff Huegill and wife Sara charged with cocaine possession

Lost forever ... the late Ryan Tandy who recently died on the NSW Central Coast. Source: News Limited

Tandy, of course, was no on-field star in the league of Johns, Cousins or Sailor, and he never earned the public admiration of Huegill. His profile came from notoriety rather than accomplishment. The journeyman front rower, who died of a suspected overdose last week aged 32, was best known for the match fixing scandal that earned him a life ban from the NRL in 2012.

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His infamy was at the opposite of the scale to the adulation that Huegill enjoyed after his remarkable reinvention in 2010. With his life spiralling out of control and his weight ballooning to 138 kilos thanks to a diet of booze and pizza, the 2000 Olympian was told he wouldn't see 40 if he didn't rein in his excesses. That Huegill managed to get back into training and lose 40 kilos was laudable. That he won Australia's only individual swimming gold medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games was astonishing.

Apology made ... Geoff Huegill makes a statement outside his Sydney home over the charges made of his and wife, Sara's alleged possession of cocaine at Randwick Racecourse. Picture: Bradley Hunter Source: News Corp Australia

Huegill's achievement and the healthy lifestyle message that he marketed set him up for life. Then came the news this week that he and his wife Sara had been charged with possession of cocaine following a day at Randwick races.

While the charges have yet to be heard by a court, as Huegill's former business partner Keith Saggers so rightly said, the question remains how forgiving the Australian public will be over the allegations. Much of Huegill's income came from motivational speaking; basically recounting his gut to gold life story for $10,000 a pop. But who will pay to hear a fairytale if it doesn't have a happy ending?

The other problem for Huegill is that he is a swimmer, not a footballer, tennis player or cricketer.

After Wendell Sailor's two-year ban ended he returned to the NRL with St George-Illawarra and is now as popular and well paid as ever as a media personality and product endorser.

Andrew Johns, who was arrested in possession of an ecstasy tablet in London after his playing days were over and subsequently admitted to using hard drugs his entire career, is a TV commentator, coach and recent inductee into the game's highest echelon, The Immortals.

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Australian goalkeeper Mark Bosnich, who admitted to a $5000 a week cocaine habit after being sacked by English club Chelsea, is now a respected commentator with Fox Sports.

Once caught with marijuana ... cricketer Stephen Fleming. Source: News Limited

Confessed former drug taker ... tennis player Andre Agassi. Source: Supplied

Tennis great Andre Agassi remains in-demand with sponsors and advertisers despite describing use of crystal meth in his best-selling biography, and New Zealand cricketer Stephen Fleming, sent home in disgrace after being caught smoking marijuana on a national team tour of South Africa in 1995, went on to become his country's most successful captain.

Australian swimming, on the other hand, is a sport which attracts its most widespread attention for just one fortnight every two years, during Commonwealth and Olympic competition. It has also suffered a credibility crisis over the past two years after the poor performance of the Australian team at London 2012 amid reports of team members running amok after taking banned prescription drug Stilnox. The recent treatment of former team captain Grant Hackett for Stilnox addiction has added to the public's disenchantment with the sport.

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Stilnox addict ... former swimmer Grant Hackett spent time in a Rehabilitation Centre in the US. Picture: David Clark Source: News Corp Australia

The message for swimmers accused of using drugs, it would seem, is make sure you still have some good performances ahead of you, as US superstar Michael Phelps proved in 2009. Phelps, who won eight medals at the Beijing Olympics the previous year, was dropped by sponsor Kellogg's after being pictured smoking dope at a college party. At the London Olympics he won another four gold and two silver medals for a record career total of 22. Even without Kellogg's on board he has earned a reported $55 million through endorsements and has just announced his intention to swim at the Rio Games in two years.

These are just the big names.

There are plenty of athletes caught using non-performance enhancing drugs who don't make the headlines because they aren't well-known enough, or in the case of the AFL, they are protected by the system. Under its three-strike rule, the AFL doesn't disclose the names of offenders unless they test positive three times — a situation reached only once, with Hawthorn's Travis Tuck who overdosed on GHB in 2010. Until recently the AFL website boasted, "The use of illicit drugs is not seen as a problem in the Australian Football League at present."

Former Minister for Sport George Brandis disagreed. "To put it bluntly, the AFL does have a problem and we would hope that peer group pressure from other sporting organisations would get them to do the right thing."

Caught with marijuana once ... Michael Phelps, who has made a comeback to swimming recently. Picture: Christian Petersen Source: Getty Images

Whether the AFL changing its three-strike policy would have any effect on the numbers of players using illicit drugs is doubtful. Plenty of other sports are quick to "name and shame" and that hasn't stopped its athletes risking bans, fines and public humiliation. So why do they do it?

Some, like Johns and Tuck put it down to psychological issues, others, like Martina Hingis who retired from tennis after testing positive to cocaine at Wimbledon in 2007, maintain their innocence.

Sailor was probably the most frank of all athletes accused of taking drugs. He, and many like him, take drugs simply because they can. For someone who gained a level of celebrity and all the trappings that came with it at an early age — the sponsored sports car, women, free drinks at nightclubs around the world and more money in a year than his parents saw in a lifetime, it wasn't a huge step.

Frank and honest ... Wendell Sailor got into trouble with drugs once. Picture: Peter Wallis Source: News Limited

"I guess it was just part of the high life," he said, "Time and money." And availability. Wherever big name athletes can be found, the hangers-on and leeches are never far away. Sailor tells the story of attending a wedding on the Gold Coast with his wife Tara in 2007 during his much publicised suspension.

"We went out to a club afterwards and even though I'd been on every TV channel and in every paper saying that I'd made a mistake and I was never going down that track again, as soon as I walked in the door all these blokes I'd never seen before in my life were coming up and saying, 'Hey Dell you getting on it tonight? You need anything?'."

So just how big a problem are so called "recreational drugs" in Australian sport? Former Brisbane Lions coach Leigh Matthews believes the percentage of footballers using drugs is less than that among people of the same age in general society. It is an opinion supported by a 2011 study undertaken at Deakin University.

The survey of almost 1700 elite athletes from 18 national bodies found that while 33 per cent of those questioned said they had been offered illicit drugs, only eight per cent had used drugs such as ecstasy, cocaine, cannabis, methamphetamine, GHB or ketamine.

At the time of Andrew Johns' 2007 admission one Sydney newspaper quoted an unnamed rugby league player as saying up to 95 per cent of NRL players used non-performance enhancing drugs, a figure disputed by Sailor.

"That's over the top," he said. "I'd say it's more like 25 per cent, and you only have to go out to see how bad it is in the community. People talk about drugs in football but they're missing the big picture."

Leigh Matthews agrees, and says no amount of testing athletes will solve the problem. "Society hasn't been able to fix it," he said. "So why should sport be able to?"

Changed his life ... Andrew Johns has returned to public life after his drug confession. Picture: Ashley Feder Source: Getty Images

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