Fine article from Marco Bonarrigo journalist on Italian newspaper
Doping and athletics, in Africa a boom of cases: 4 "hares" of Kipchoge disqualified
by Marco Bonarrigo Drugs, escapes, fake identities behind the record factory. Since January 1, 23 athletes have been found positive in Kenya
It is useless to look for them on the Net: they have disappeared from the web like those Chinese and Russian dignitaries who have fallen from grace and removed from the memory of their homeland. The portraits and biographies of Marius Kisperem, Philemon Kacheran and Justus Kimutai have recently been "bleached" by the site ineos159challenge.com in which they appeared among the "pacemaker-angels", the "hares", who helped on 12 October 2019 in Vienna Eliud Kipchoge to break down the wall of two hours in the marathon, one of the most successful sports marketing operations ever. A fourth, Alex Korio, had already been sanctioned. The faults of the four Kenyans are not political but pharmacological: erythropoietin (for Marius), testosterone (for Philemon) and escape from doping tests for Justus and Alex. The divine Kipchoge (who has nothing to do with the three cases and doping) did not comment, neither did Ineos, but for the Athletics Integrity Unit (Aiu) that performs the checks in athletics, the four cases are just the tip of an iceberg.
Since last January 1st there are 23 (record) Kenyans suspended for doping while 56 of their compatriots, 12 Ethiopians and another 60 athletes from Nigeria, Morocco, Ethiopia and another ten African nations are serving a disqualification. Behind the crazy performances there are not only the famous heels but there is also an impressive doping. The numbers of hegemony are known: there are only six non-Africans among the hundred fastest marathoners ever and only two (out of 70) among those who in the last ten years have triumphed in the great Olympic and world marathons, escaping African domination. The new drug mix of cross-country and marathon runners combines classic products (the old Epo, testosterone and its brothers), blood transfusions, the future metabolic accelerator GW501516, the antischemic trimetazidine very dear to cyclists, ostarine, meldonium launched by Sharapova, the letrozole of tennis memory, the highly popular triamcinolone, a glucocorticoid that has produced ten cases in a few months like those of Diana Kipyokei, winner in Boston in 2021, and of Betty Wilson Lempus, winner of the last half marathon of Paris. Doped hunters sometimes fish in a targeted manner, others by trawling. In cases of positivity to "hospital" substances such as Epo, fake hospitalizations and fake transfusions abound, as for the Ethiopian Etaferahu Wodaj, disqualified for twelve years.
The surprise tests to build the biological passport that framed the Moroccan Aziz Lahbabi require continuous stalking and the many "missed checks" have almost comical implications: non-existent addresses, escapes from the windows of the house. To frame Mathew Kipkoech Kisorio, one of the best in the world in the half marathon, the inspectors of Aiu swooped in four times in ten months at home and where the Kenyan said to train but he was always elsewhere. Then there are grotesque cases: disqualified in 2017 for doping, the Kenyan Hillary Kiprotich recently ran some international marathons under the (female) identity of Shieys Chepkosgei. Exposed, he cleared himself by presenting a fake birth certificate to the Eldoret Criminal Court. A criminal sentence was added to the disqualification (doubled).