Watch every second of the 2026 Super Rugby Pacific season live and on demand via Stan Sport.<\/a><\/p>\nThe 27-year-old made his debut for South Africa aganst Italy in July 2025 but tested positive in a random test carried out by the South African Institute for a Drug-Free Sport (SAIDS) on the Springbok tour of New Zealand last August.<\/p>\n
He was dropped from the squad but recalled\u00a0by head coach Rassie Erasmus for the autumn internationals and played half an hour during the 73-0 rout of Wales on November 29 for the last of his three caps.<\/p>\n
The South African Rugby Football Union said at the time that the substance, “which does not enhance performance”, had been prescribed by “a specialist doctor in early 2025 for medical reasons” and “at no time” did the player “seek to gain an unfair advantage”.<\/p>\n
In a statement on Thursday, SAIDS said the player’s urine sample tested positive for the hormone and metabolic modulator, anastrozole.<\/p>\n
“In terms of the South African Anti-Doping Rules, this substance is classified as a ‘specified substance’ and does not warrant a mandatory suspension,” the statement said.<\/p>\n
“The player also self-declared the use of a prohibited anabolic steroid, DHEA,” it added.<\/p>\n
SAIDS said it had charged Ntlabakanye for using both anastrozole and DHEA in a case heard by an Independent Doping Tribunal Panel which handed down the 18-month ban, subject to appeal.<\/p>\n
The Lions issued a statement confirming they had been informed of the ban “following a breach of anti-doping rules”.<\/p>\n
“Lions Rugby Company will continue to support Ntlabakanye as he navigates the process ahead,” the statement said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Africa prop Asenathi Ntlabakanye has been\u00a0banned for 18 months for doping, his Johannesburg-based club, the Lions, announced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85,2995],"class_list":["post-671792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-springboks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}