Doping For Dollars & Cows Back Home

Must admit I was a big fan of Lance. Stayed true to Alberto until I don’t want to talk about it. Still think the Tainted Burrito Incident should be a Lifetime movie. I come from an era, well, my idea of performance-enhancing drugs was pasta carbonara and Foster’s Lager. No telling how fast I might’ve run with actual pharmaceuticals.

Back then, when somebody ran a marathon in less than 150 minutes, you knew it was a highly trained male athlete. So, imagine my surprise when sub-2:20s for women became almost routine.

Sub-2:20 women’s marathons?

In 2015, there were two. In 2016, just one. Four in 2017.

Imagine those new Nike shoes were introduced. And suddenly, 2018, we have eleven sub-2:20s.

Thirteen more in 2019. It’s the shoes! OMG.

With a world-wide pandemic, only ten sub-2:20s. Fewer still in 2021, just eight.

All the shoe companies have caught up.

The incredible performances this year arose naturally out of quarantine. Nothing to see here.

In 2022 – so far – would you believe there have been twenty-seven (27!) sub-2:20 marathons run by women. Seems like a lot. [Make that 30! Three more in Amsterdam.]

Two more months to go and a couple of big paydays yet ahead this year.

You still think it’s the shoes?

Cause, Lord knows, I don’t want to point any fingers.

Boston ‘21 Women’s Champ Kipyokei Latest User Of Favored Cycling Drug

Kenyan Diana Kipyogei won the Covid-delayed 2021 Boston Marathon women’s division in October of that year, ahead of countrywoman (and 2017 winner) Edna Kiplagat, 2:24:45 to 2:25:09.

On Friday, the Athletics Integrity Unit provisionally suspended Kipyogei and fellow Kenyan women’s marathoner Betty Wilson Lempus for doping violations following investigations for “Adverse Analytical Findings (AAF) for metabolites of triamcinolone acetonide in samples they provided during in-competition tests last year.”

Kipyogei’s Boston Marathon sample came back positive for triamcinolone acetonide, a corticosteroid used for treat skin conditions. It’s used in the over-the-counter nasal spray Nasacort. She was also charged with “obstructing or delaying the AIU’s investigation through the provision of false information or documentation.”

If proved, Kipyogei would lose her Boston Marathon title, which was her third career marathon and second win, after the Istanbul Marathon in 2020, where she set her lifetime best of 2:22:06. She has been more active as a half-marathoner, with a best of 67:07 from 2018.

Lempus’ positive – also for f triamcinolone acetonide – came in September 2021, after winning the Harmonie Mutuelle Semi de Paris half marathon in a speedy 1:05:46, moving her to no. 12 on the world list for last year. She was initially cleared by the French anti-doping agency, but has now been charged with tampering via providing false information.

Glucocorticoids such as triamcinolone acetonide are banned in competition “because, when administered via prohibited routes, there is clear evidence of systemic effects which could potentially enhance performance and be harmful to health.” They can be used with a Therapeutic Use Exemption, which neither Kipyogei or Lempus had.

The AIU sounded the alarm on the widening use of triamcinolone acetonide among Kenyan athletes:

“The cases announced today are part of a recent trend in Kenyan athletics regarding triamcinolone acetonide, with ten Kenyan athletes testing positive for that prohibited substance between 2021 and 2022.

“Within the same time period in athletics globally, there have been just two positive triamcinolone acetonide AAFs [adverse findings] for athletes from all other countries.

“In the four years from 2017 to 2020, there were only three Kenyan AAFs for triamcinolone acetonide. Yesterday, the AIU announced that it had banned Mark Kangogo – the initial winner of the Sierre-Zinal 2022 mountain race in Switzerland – for three years for the presence of triamcinolone acetonide in his sample. In addition to the Kipyokei, Lempus and Kangogo cases, the AIU currently has four open investigations into AAFs for triamcinolone acetonide for Kenyan athletes; with two matters pending with [Anti-Doping Kenya].”

Matt Lawton, Chief Sports Correspondent for The Times (London) noted that this same drug has long been part of doping in cycling, including by disgraced American star Lance Armstrong during his win at the 1999 Tour de France and Britain’s David Millar, the two-time World Time Trial Championships silver medalist. Lawton’s follow-up tweet included:

“Triamcinolone the new go-to drug in distance running. Difference is, @aiu_athletics are taking the time to investigate if an athlete really has a [medical] need for it.”

Source: https://www.thesportsexaminer.com/

If you want the sport you love to be great and to inspire future generations, you want the sport to be clean.

Doesn’t matter what sport.

Many conversations. Many, many, you have no idea. Imagine old dudes on the general store’s front porch, shooting the shit. Some are still complaining about the fiberglass pole.

More than a couple road running stars from the early ’70s would love to post these girls’ times. But they weren’t born in thin air and they took the bus to school. No energizing gels back then either. Or goat yoga.

Just last week, a squeaky-clean geezer mentioned the possibility of some Africans maybe “microdosing.”

With this latest sad announcement, I looked around the porch for a comment.

Bill Rodgers:

I think the issue is not just the athletes from any country who might feel compelled to cheat and win money at these big marathons or on the track. I think it’s the agents who need to be penalized, so maybe a Sebastian Coe and World Athletics could take a look at that issue. I think they’ve done great work with the Athletes Integrity Unit and actually catching drug cheats but it isn’t just the athlete. It’s more than that.

I also think the World Marathon Majors have to do a better job on this issue. Don’t pretend the doping story doesn’t exist. Stop bringing in way too many athletes who might be potential dopers.

I think there is the issue of availability of athletes in any given country. I think most of them are clean. Not too many American marathoners have had an issue with doping.

Hopefully, the athletes who do commentary can address this issue and give more focus to the 95% of the world’s athletes who were born at sea level and therefore are not likely to win a major Marathon against way too many athletes born at altitude and a certain percentage of whom are doping.

Let’s get a list of who are all the agents of all the guilty dopers. We’ve heard of a few already – their names are well known – but they haven’t been booted out of the sport. They need to be booted out. I think all clean athletes agree and most of the athletes are clean.

I thought it was terrific that Jemima Sumgong who won [2:24:04] the gold medal in the 2016 Olympic Marathon spoke out about the need for athletes to be better protected from those agents who want to dope their athletes and for the Kenyan Federation to protect their athletes more I know many Kenyan athletes has spoken out in a positive way about this issue and I’m sure 2020 Olympic champion [2:27:20] Peres Jepchirchir would do the same thing.

Based on the best information available, Kipyokei’s agent Gianni Demadonna concluded “Diana is completely guilty. I am sorry. She has done something very bad.” He denied any involvement with Kipyokei taking performance enhancing drugs.

Not everyone is buying Demadonna’s disavowal of involvement in Kipyokei’s doping. As pointed out in Fast Women, Chris McClung (one of the hosts of Clean Sport Collective podcast) said on Twitter, “We’ve seen it before. Agent or coach runs doping program. Athlete gets popped and banned. Agent says it’s one bad actor, cuts them off, and then finds the next athlete to put forward.”

According to the AIU, ten Kenyans have tested positive for triamcinolone in the last two years versus two among all other nations combined.

Kipyokei and Lempus are the 22nd and 23rd Kenyan athletes to be sanctioned in 2022.

Still a few months to go.

A few more big races.

More drug tests.

Before the cows come home.

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Jawing With Bill Rodgers

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