Susan Chepkemei Gets Doping Suspension
By David Monti
(c) 2008 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved
February 26, 2008
Four-time IAAF World Half-Marathon medalist Susan Chepkemei has been
sanctioned for a doping violation, the IAAF reported yesterday. In an
out-of-competition test in Kenya last September, Chepkemei's sample
returned a positive result for Salbutamol, a medication commonly
prescribed for breathing problems, usually asthma.
Indeed, according to Valentijn Trouw of Global Sports Communications,
the Dutch management firm which represents Chepkemei, the medication
was given to their athlete by a doctor in a Nairobi hospital where
Chepkemei had presented herself for treatment.
"Beginning of September Susan Chepkemei had a severe pneumonia," Trouw
said in a written statement. "After investigation in the hospital in
Nairobi, she was told by the doctor to take a medicine (which contained
the substance Salbutamol). Susan was convinced the doctor who gave her
the prescription knew she was an international top athlete and she was
given a medicine that didn't contain any substance which is prohibited
according to the doping list. She took the medicine that evening."
The following day, Sept. 10, IAAF drug testers visited Chepkemei's home to take a sample.
"She fully co-operated with the test and wrote down on the doping form
the medicine she had taken the evening before," Trouw continued.
"Later in the year she was informed her doping test showed a positive
result."
According to the IAAF, Athletics Kenya has imposed a sanction of one
year of ineligibility, from Oct. 19, 2007, through Oct. 18, 2008, and
all results achieved by Chepkemei from Sept. 10, 2007, to the present
will be annulled. In that timeframe, Chepkemei competed in only one
event: the IAAF World Half-Marathon Championships last 14-Oct where she
did not finish.
Trouw also confirmed that Chepkemei is five months pregnant, a fact
consistent with her lack of competition appearances in recent months.
Chepkemei, 32, has been one of Kenya's best long-term performers from
10,000m to the marathon. In 2002 she won the Commonwealth Games silver
medal at 10,000m setting a personal best 31:32.04. She has a
half-marathon personal best of 1:05:44 set on the aided course in
Lisbon in 2001, but also ran a 1:07:36 on a record-standard course in
Bristol, England, later that year at the IAAF World Half-Marathon
Championships where she earned her second of three silver medals in
those championships. She has a marathon personal best of 2:21:46 set
at London in 2006, where she finished third.
One of her most dramatic races came in the 2004 ING New York City
Marathon where she came second to Briton's Paula Radcliffe in a sprint
finish.
