The U.S. collegiate season is reaching its peak beginning this weekend with a mass of conference championships across the country. The early meets have already produced one world-leading mark, a 10.96 women’s 100 m from North Carolina A&T senior Kayla White, who won the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) at Greensboro, North Carolina.
To follow the conference meets individually, check out the USTFCCCA portal site here, or you can see a rolling summary of what’s going on at the USTFCCCA weekend-in-review page here.
¶
The International Olympic Committee announced a couple more doping positives from its re-analysis program from the London 2012 Games, including Ineta Radevica (LAT), who finished fourth in the women’s long jump.
Her re-test showed the presence of the prohibited anabolic steroid Oxandrolone in testing done in September 2018 and after all of the procedures were followed, giving Radevica the opportunity for a hearing (she provided a defense in writing), the decision was announced on Friday (10 May).
The winner of the women’s long jump silver in the 2011 IAAF World Championships, she retired after the 2012 Games. Her disqualification is the fifth in the women’s long jump, with athletes from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Turkey already identified, and affecting places 4-5-7 in the final.
¶
More doping news: the Athletics Integrity Unit has been busy and issued five sanctions in the past week:
● 02 May: Reneilwe Aphane (RSA) ~ 3 1/2 years ineligibility
● 05 May: Glory Nathaniel Onome (NGR) ~ 4 years ineligibility
● 06 May: Aleksei Savin (RUS) ~ 4 years ineligibility
● 06 May: Kseniya Savina (RUS) ~ 12 years ineligibility
● 09 May: Maria Guadalupe Gonzalez (MEX) ~ 4 years ineligibility
Aphane is a South African triple jumper and 2017 national champion with a best of 16.75 m (54-11 1/2); he is banned from 28 February 2018.
Nathaniel Onome (NGR) was the 2018 African Champion in the 400 m Hurdles with a best of 55.01. She was caught for the steroid Stanozolol, as of 30 August 2018.
Savina was a former Ukrainian national who transferred allegiance to Russia in 2014. She had an 800 m best of 1:59.97 from 2017, but was caught for doping (EPO) and then tampering with the doping control “process” by providing forged records of her medications. Her reward is 12 years of ineligibility, with her results annulled from 16 May of 2018. She can appeal the decision, but at 29, her career is likely over, and she has reportedly retired. Her husband and coach, Aleksei Savin, was also found to be part of the tampering scheme and given a four-year ban.
Savina is also reportedly being investigated for using an assumed identity to allow her to compete, of Ukrainian friend Galina Syshko.
Guadalupe Gonzalez was the Olympic silver medalist in the women’s 20 km walk in Rio in 2016 and at the 2017 World Championships in London. She was found to be using steroids including Trenbolone and is banned for four years from 16 November 2018.
WADA and the AIU are getting more efficient at finding the cheaters, but it does not appear to have stopped them. More work is needed.
¶
After his dominating performance at the London Marathon, winning in the no. 2 time ever, Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge appears ready to take another shot at a time trial to break the 2:00 barrier.
Reuters reported that his second time trial at he distance will apparently come in London in a “Ineos 1:59 Challenge” underwritten by British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, head of the Ineos chemical firm.
The event is likely to be held in September or October on a loop course and if carefully staged, might be eligible for world-record consideration by the IAAF. Nevertheless, Kipchoge said at the announcement of the event last Monday, “This would really surpass everything because this will go in the history as far as the human family is concerned.
“It is not about recognition or ratification but to make history and to pass on a message that no human is limited. Running the fastest-ever marathon of 2:00.25 was the proudest moment of my career.”
The announcement itself had some drama, being made at the Iffley Road running track in Oxford where Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile barrier on the same date in 1954.
Kipchoge’s decision for another sub-2:00 try in the fall means he will skip the IAAF World Championships in Doha (QAT). He has never run the marathon at the IAAF Worlds, but knows the event well from his five entries in the 5,000 m, where he won a gold and a silver in 2003-07.
Athletics International reported that Kenya will still field an excellent Worlds marathon squad of defending champ Geoffrey Kirui (2:06:27 lifetime best in 2016), Laban Korir (2:05:54 ‘16), Amos Kipruto (2:05:43 ‘17), Paul Lonyangata (2:06:10 ‘17) and Ernest Ngeno (2:06:41 ‘18).
