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News Feature
Three strikes and she’s out (22 August)
 Britain’s most promising hopeful for the 2012 Olympic Games, Christine Ohuruogu, has received a provisional ban for missing three drug tests over the past 18 months. Not only does this damage Ohuruogu’s preparation for the Games but much has been made of the cloud it places over Britain’s lead-up to what was predicted to be their most successful Games yet.
The 22-year-old Ohuruogu’s ban has highlighted a previously unrecognised problem in the British Athletics team: a marked increase in the number of athletes missing tests, coinciding with increased drug testing availability requirements. Officials now require an athlete to nominate one hour from five days of the week, every week, when they will be available for random testing.
UK Sport’s program manager Nicole Sapstead says, “We have a growing number of missed tests. If the current trend continues, we will be faced with the prospect of athletes across various sports being suspended due to what is essentially their inability to follow a simple procedure designed to protect their right to compete on a level playing field.”
Ohuruogu, the 400m Commonwealth Games champion, has been unable to provide any detailed excuse for missing the three tests, merely apologising and claiming changes in circumstances and training schedules were to blame.
The speculation around missing drug tests couldn’t come at a worse time for UK Athletics, with performance director Dave Collins coming under attack for his recent appointment of former world champion sprinter Linford Christie as sprint coach. Christie was banned in 1999 after testing positive for nandrolone.
If found guilty, Ohuruogu could receive a two year ban from the sport and, under a British Olympic Association bylaw, a lifetime Olympic ban. Christie has since come to Ohuruogu’s defence saying, “Of course Christine didn’t cheat, she’s just naïve, not guilty.”
Even if this is just a case of an athlete’s naivety, Ohuruogu’s potential Olympic ban signals big trouble for the London 2012 organising committee. It had been counting on promoting her as the face of mulitcultural London, much in the way Cathy Freeman came to represent a diverse and reconciled Australia at the Sydney Games in 2000.
These charges are similar to those that saw Greek athletes Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou ejected from the Athens Olympics, with each receiving a two-year suspension. By providing little explanation for her actions, it is believed that Ohuruogu has little chance of evading punishment.
By Edwina Ryan
Further reading: Olympic dream in tatters -- Guardian; Christie defends Ohuruogu (BBC audio interview); Report by Daily Mail (pictured)
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