Blurring the edges over drugs

A decade ago, Richard Chelimo was briefly a big name on the European circuit. The Kenyan set a world record for 10,000 metres and at Barcelona in 1992 was involved, with Khaled Skah, in one of the most controversial Olympic races.

Then his life spiralled out of control. He became an alcoholic. The money he had earned during his career was squandered. Earlier this month, at the age of 29, he died from a brain tumour.

What made this even sadder was that most people will only have become aware of Chelimo's death when the world 1,500m champion and world mile record holder, Hicham El Guerrouj, linked it to performance-enhancing drugs.

Fabiane dos Santos' period as a high-earning performer on the circuit was even shorter than Chelimo's. The 25-year-old Brazilian was the sensation of the 800m until she tested positive for the body building drug testosterone and was banned for life by her national federation.

Last week she tried to take her life. Fortunately her boyfriend found her unconscious in their Madrid flat and she was revived in hospital.

Dos Santos claims she is the victim of a plot by her estranged husband, an official of the Brazilian athletics federation, to discredit her, and that she was set up when she briefly returned home to compete earlier this summer.

Then there is Olga Yegorova. She is threatening to sue Romania's Gabriela Szabo over comments the Olympic 5,000m champion made during the world championships in Edmonton, where the Russian was briefly suspended, then reinstated, after testing positive for erythropoietin (EPO). This was a stunning example of barefaced cheek.

The cases of Chelimo, dos Santos and Yegorova demonstrate that it is becoming increasingly hard to tell who are the good guys and who are the bad in the athletics drugs war. Take Szabo. Plenty of competitors have voiced doubts in the past about the performances she has achieved but there she was in Edmonton, leading the good fight from the front. If it was an act, then Julia Roberts had better watch out.

El Guerrouj is another whose performance has made him the subject of a whispering campaign. But, after the Zurich meeting, he said 'in the years to come many athletes will die because of doping' and linked the Chelimo tragedy with his comments. It was a tasteless remark, showing ignorance of the Kenyan's circumstances. The Moroccan has now allied himself with Paula Radcliffe's campaign to have proper EPO testing introduced as early as possible and in Brussels on Friday was even sporting a red ribbon on his vest to indicate he was willing to be blood-tested at any time.

Also in Brussels, Marion Jones said she would be prepared to sign Radcliffe's planned petition to be presented to the International Association of Athletics Federations in the New Year. This is the same Marion Jones who less than a year ago was defending her husband, the shot putter CJ Hunter, after he had tested positive for the anabolic steroid nandrolone.

In the mid-1980s Steve Ovett caused a storm when he refused to sign a petition circulated by British athletes condemning doping. Ovett said he had seen some of the names on the list, knew what was going on and did not wish to be associated with them.

One of the names on it was Linford Christie, who at the time paraded in a T-shirt bearing the legend 'Drug free'. He demanded prison sentences for anyone who failed a test. I wonder what his views on that are now, after he recently completed a two-year ban for nandrolone.

An article in a recent issue of Athletics Weekly speculated that because there had been no world records in Edmonton it was proof that the dope busters were finally catching up with the cheats. 'At last seeing is believing,' concluded the reporter.

Until Friday night. In Brussels the 200m was won in 19.88sec by JJ Johnson, a name so unknown it did not merit a mention in the 660-page statistical guide the IAAF produced for Edmonton.

It represented an improvement of 0.60sec - about five metres - by the 25-year-old American. At this level of athletics, this is inexplicable. It seems very unfair on Johnson - maybe he found a new level of form and simply ran the race of his life - but, by the end of the evening, there was a sweepstake in the press box as to when it would be announced he had tested positive. For these onlookers, seeing was not believing.

Johnson's performance came at the end of a week when perhaps the most enlightening remark came from Russia's head coach, Valery Kulichenko. He said Yegorova did not take EPO and explained: 'It is so expensive we just don't have the money to buy it.'

He did not say she did not take EPO because it is wrong, but because it is too expensive. Does that mean if they could afford it they would buy it?

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