For doping them or for the leak
There’s been a few Brits on the goofballs
You’d have to admire Conte. What a salesman.
Contamination by a massage from his physiotherapist.
Munster Rugby could have come up with a very slightly less implausible excuse than that**
**albeit still completely implausible
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Is Italy following in the footsteps of Eastern europe, regardinh performance enhancing drugs in sport. They have come to the fore considerably in the field of athletics & numerous other sports recently, showing remarkable improvement across the board.
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Or Spain
EPO says hello. Sure they invented it
The Dutch are definitely up to no good anyway.
Denis Irwin knew
Two former Dublin marathon winners test positive for EPO
It’s the second time in recent years that the winner of the Dublin Marathon has been engulfed in a doping controversy.
Morocco’s Taoufik Allam wins the 2022 Dublin Marathon with a time of 2:11:30. Pic ©INPHO/Bryan Keane
FRI, 23 AUG, 2024 - 15:54
CATHAL DENNEHY
Two recent winners of the Dublin Marathon, Taoufik Allam of Morocco and Nataliya Lehonkova of Ukraine, have been provisionally suspended after testing positive for the banned performance-enhancing drug EPO.
Allam, 35, won the men’s title in Dublin in 2022 while Lehonkova, 41, won the women’s title in 2015 and 2017. Both athletes were included in the latest pending cases by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), which runs the sport’s anti-doping system. Allam’s case is listed for 16 August and Lehonkova’s for 21 August, with both stating: “Presence/Use of a Prohibited Substance (EPO)”.
Synthetic erythropoietin is a banned drug that increases the body’s production of red blood cells, thereby improving its oxygen-carrying capacity. Both athletes can contest the charge and request to have their B samples tested to confirm the finding.
In a statement, Dublin Marathon organisers said they “strongly condemn the use of banned substances” and have “zero tolerance for such practices.”
“As a World Athletics elite event, Dublin Marathon organisers strictly adhere to the rules, regulations and anti-doping processes set forth by World Athletics. The Dublin Marathon supports and implements all anti-doping rules and regulations, and the elite field in the Dublin Marathon is subject to these anti-doping controls.”
The race has faced doping controversies in the past, with Morocco’s Othmane El Goumri winning in 2019 after returning from a two-year ban for irregularities in his biological passport, a tool used by anti-doping authorities to track changes in athletes’ blood profiles for signs of doping.
El Goumri set a personal best of 2:08:06 to win the first prize of €12,000, demoting Ireland’s Stephen Scullion to second.
“Arguably I might have won the thing if he wasn’t here,” said Scullion.
“I feel like a winner inside, that’s a victory for me. I’ve always taken a stance that drug cheats can do whatever they want, I can’t control it. I want to enjoy my moment, and in six or nine months’ time if he gets done for another doping violation, then I’m the champ.
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"If the crowd want to believe I’m the champ, let them say. And when the room goes dark at night, I go to bed content knowing I’m clean.”
Allam is represented by the same management company as El Goumri. In the 2022 edition, Allam routed the field to win the men’s title, clocking a PB of 2:11:30 to come home almost two and a half minutes clear of the Ethiopian runner-up, Ashenafi Boja.
The leading Irish finisher that year was Martin Hoare of Celbridge AC, who was seventh in 2:20:22. Allam has since gone on to take victories at the 2023 Rome Marathon in 2:07:43 and the 2024 Enschede Marathon in 2:08:53.
Lehonkova won her first title in Dublin in 2015, clocking 2:31:08, the Ukrainian returning in 2017 and setting a PB of 2:28:58 to win by close to six minutes ahead of Ethiopia’s Ashu Kasim.
Ireland’s Laura Graham was one spot away from a podium finish in 2017, coming home fourth in 2:39:07. In 2022, Lehonkova returned to Dublin to finish fifth in 2:35:30.
Neither athlete had any doping history before lining up in Dublin but they each face a four-year ban if their positives are confirmed.
Given the timing, neither case is likely to affect the results of the respective marathons in Dublin, where they pocketed a first prize of €12,000.
Someone should reply saying he wasn’t disqualified from DCM 
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I wouldn’t mind but I should have put down 7,212th.
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You’re in the clear re drug use?
His improvements are certainly questionable
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