Jamaican triple Olympic and world champion Usain Bolt’s sprint training partners Yohan Blake and Marvin Anderson were among four Jamaican runners who have admitted taking banned substances.
Allodin Fothergill and Lansford Spence also are awaiting punishment after their confession to Jamaican officials following months of legal wrangling.
SANCTION
“The athletes have admitted they took a banned substance,” Jamaican Anti-Doping Appeals Tribunal chairman Ransford Langrin said in a statement. “We have to decide now what is the sanction we apply — and the minimum sanction is a reprimand or up to a two years ban.”
Samples taken at the Jamaican Championships from June 26 to June 28, the qualifying meet for last month’s World Championships in Berlin, were positive for the four as well as Commonwealth Games 100m champion Sheri-Ann Brooks.
APPEAL
All were cleared at first because the substance was not on the WADA banned list or of similar composition, but the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission appealed the finding, saying it was similar to tuaminoheptane.
The Jamaica Anti-Doping Appeals Tribunal upheld tossing out the positive test for Brooks because her “B” sample was tested without her knowledge.
But Langrin, a retired Jamaica Court of Appeal judge, said the others had admitted their guilt and that a sentence would be imposed next Monday.
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
Taiwan’s top table tennis player Lin Yun-ju made his debut in the US professional table tennis scene by taking on a new role as a team’s co-owner. On Wednesday, Major League Table Tennis (MLTT), founded in September last year, announced on its official Web site that Lin had become part of the ownership group of the Princeton Revolution, one of the league’s eight teams. MLTT chief executive officer Flint Lane described Lin’s investment as “another great milestone for table tennis in America,” saying that the league’s “commitment to growth and innovation is drawing attention from the best in the sport, and we’re
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For