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| October 22, 2005 | Saturday | Ramzan 17, 1426 |
China’s top distance runner fails dope test
NANJING, China, Oct 21: China’s star distance runner Sun Yingjie, a world championship bronze medallist, has failed a dope test and been stripped of her 10,000m silver medal at the China National Games, officials said Friday.
Sun, 26, tested positive for androsterone, a steroid precursor of the male hormone testosterone, after finishing second in the event on Monday and has been thrown out of the Games.
“The result of Sun Yingjie in the 10,000m race run on October 17, 2005 has been cancelled and she has been stripped of her status as a 10th National Games contestant,” said a statement by her team.
Sun is one of China’s top hopes for a gold medal at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the positive test will be a serious blow to China’s plans to make a mark on home turf in track events, in which they have traditionally struggled.
Doping officials said that further investigations will decide what further punishment will be dished out.
“We are still investigating the case,” Zhao Jian, vice head of the National Games doping investigation bureau, told AFP.
“We need to sit her down and talk to her and we need to talk to her coaches, we must get more information from them on how she took this steroid.”
Androsterone is a naturally occurring steroid, but the amounts discovered in Sun’s urine test were above normal levels, Zhao said.
He refused to speculate whether Sun took the drug herself or whether it was given to her by a coach or team doctor. China normally punishes both coaches and athletes in positive doping cases.
“This steroid has been listed as a banned substance for a long time and has been easy to detect for a long time. It is not likely that she took it accidentally,” Zhao said.
The tests were conducted at an International Olympic Committee-accredited laboratory in Beijing.—AFP
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