Ryk denies abusing drugs

Cape Town - Olympic gold medallist Ryk Neethling has rubbished his former sweetheart Amanda Beard’s claims that they abused drugs while dating, reports the Sowetan.

The 30-year-old Beard alleges in her explicit autobiography 'In the Water They Can’t See You Cry' that there were times when she couldn’t handle their “loud screaming mean fights” that she would resort to self-mutilation.

Beard, a seven-time Olympic medallist, writes in the newly-released tell- all: “I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I was trying to figure out how to live in a bad relationship”.

The pair met at the University of Arizona where she was a freshman and Neethling was a senior in the Wildcat’s swimming team, and began dating in 1999.

Their relationship lasted through the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece.

Beard, who has given interviews to the New York Times and even talk show host Dr. Phil during the promotion of the book, even described a two-month stay in South Africa where she met the Neethling family.

During the visit, she says Ecstasy, cocaine and even acid was taken.

She suggested she never got the attention she craved from Neethling - who returned home from the States.

 But Neethling was having none of it on Tuesday.

He said: “As told in my book Chasing the Dream, the relationship with Amanda Beard was tempestuous. [But] I was stunned to hear about the content related to me in her recently released book”.

He declined to discuss the contents of the book any further, instead reiterating that he had never failed a drugs test throughout his illustrious career in the green and gold colours.