London alarm bells ringing over danger of African drug cheats

ORGANISERS of the world’s leading marathons, including today’s London race, are privately concerned it is hard to perform effective drug tests on runners based in remote locations within Kenya and Ethiopia — where a majority of top marathon stars come from.

The world’s six biggest marathons — Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York — are collectively known as the Abbott World Marathon Majors (AWMM), and spend almost £1million each year on out-of-competition random blood tests of top runners.

The pool of targets varies, but comprises around 150 men and women worldwide at any one time, including all ‘active’ male potential participants who have run sub 2hr 11min and all women under 2hr 30min.

The AWMM aims to conduct six out-of-competition blood tests on each person in the pool each year at a cost of more than £1,000 each.

‘It is important fans can believe what they see,’ said London Marathon CEO Nick Bitel.

The scheme took a massive scalp earlier this month when it was announced that a random test had resulted in a positive finding for EPO in Kenya’s Jemima Sumgong, whose major race wins included last year’s London Marathon.

A majority of the world’s best marathon runners are from two countries: Kenya and Ethiopia. Of the top 56 runners in the AWMM rankings, 39, or 70 per cent, are from those two nations.

Sources say athletes who train in remote east-African locations can ‘pose considerable logistical difficulties’ for testers. Getting to them can be arduous, insiders say, then getting blood samples to World Anti-Doping Agency-accredited labs for testing is even trickier.

In order to guarantee samples do not deteriorate, blood must get to a WADA lab in 36 hours, although a rule change from January can extend this in some cases. The problem is there is no WADA lab in Africa as South Africa’s is suspended for failing to meet adequate standards.

The London Marathon nonetheless remains at the forefront of clean sport, says Bitel, adding that the AWMM will continue to pursue cheats through the courts to retrieve ill-gotten prize money.

London organisers, for example, continue to pursue the 2010 winner Liliya Shobukhova, of Russia, for £377,961.62 from the 2010 and 2011 events, after which she was banned for doping.