Doping claims rock Zimbabwe athletics

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Sikhumbuzo Moyo, Senior Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE athletics has been rocked by doping allegations amid fears the country’s sporting fraternity could be enveloped by this scandal due to the unavailability of World Anti Doping Agency (Wada) accredited laboratory locally.

The situation got worse following closure of the only laboratory on the continent that was located in South Africa, leaving only 32 accredited laboratories throughout the world, according to the official Wada website.

According to Wada, the Americas region has seven accredited laboratories, Asia has seven, Oceania has one laboratory, while Europe has the largest number of laboratories with 18.

“I will not speak for other sporting disciplines, but what I know is that in athletics doping is on a massive scale hence you see our athletes doing wonders in local races, but when it comes to regional or international races, we perform dismally if ever we would have attended those races,” said a coach, who requested anonymity.

Another coach said the zeal for immediate success was overcoming a number of athletes and coaches, hence the urge to take performance enhancing substances which have a long term negative effect on the health of athletes.

“It’s a time bomb that will eventually explode,” said the coach.

Renowned athletics coach and National University of Science and Technology (Nust) sports science lecturer Bhekuzulu Khumalo said it was disturbing if athletes were taking performance enhancing substances.

“It will be sad if that is happening, but I can’t totally rule it out. If that is happening, it means the competing ground is no longer level. A doping athlete can be selected for international races, but because he or she will be knowing that some tests can be done outside, the athlete will go and perform with his natural self and obviously do bad,” said Khumalo.

He said the consequences of using such performance enhancing drugs could be dire to the athlete while also having the possibility of tarnishing the image of the country.

“Our biggest problem now is that we no longer have developmental structures in place for our athletes as a country and that forces us to then assemble teams when competition time comes and that is dangerous,” said Khumalo.

According to a Wada 2017 anti-doping testing figures report on a global scale, there was a 7.1 percent increase in the overall number of samples analysed from 300 565 in 2016 to 322 050 in 2017.

“The 2017 Report summarises the results of all the samples Wada-accredited laboratories analysed and reported into Wada’s Anti-Doping Administration and Management System (ADAMS) in 2017. This is the third set of global testing results since the revised World Anti-Doping Code (Code) came into effect in January 2015. The 2017 Report, which includes this executive summary and sub-reports by Laboratory, Sport, Testing Authority (TA) and Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) Blood Analysis, includes in and out of competition urine samples; blood and ABP blood data; and, the resulting Adverse Analytical Findings (AAFs) and Atypical Findings (ATFs),” Wada noted on its report.

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