Dan Carter and his Racing 92 teammates Joe Rokocoko and Juan Imhoff have been cleared of any doping wrongdoing after the Champions Cup final.
They had tested positive for taking corticoids.
The affair has exercised the French press for several days now. But Carter struggles to understand why there was any brouhaha. He told Le Monde in an interview that he saw no problem with getting an injection of corticoids for treatment of an injury.
In Carter's case, he suffered from an inflammation in his knee after the semi-final win over Clermont. He was administered with the injection. Throughout the discussion he kept on repeating his trust in the doctors.
When you have an injury, you take procedures to cure that injury, within the antidoping regulations, of course. Obviously, the reason for me taking, which I explained to the medical hearing that we had, was that I played the semi-final against Clermont. The next day I had inflammation in my knee. I had the injection. I rested for two days. And then after that rest I was fit to play and I played. And I can’t see a problem with that because that’s all within the regulations. When you have an injury, you get your injury cured.
In contrast to the French press, the New Zealand media took account of the story, established that Carter hadn't broken any anti-doping regulations and said no more about it.
Carter also disclosed that he had received an cortisone injection during the 2015 World Cup.
I had an injection after the injury, during the World Cup. I had an injury in the quarter-finals and the next day I had an inflammation in the right knee as well. I’ve had a few (in my career). When you have an injury, you want to cure the injury. It’s as simple as that.
