© Copyright – 2021 – Athletics Illustrated
“No person has a good enough memory to be a succesfull liar.”
– Abraham Lincoln.
Nelly Jepkosgei, an 800m and 1500m athlete competing for Bahrain, has been banned by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) for three years. She is accused of faking a car accident as for the reason she missed an out-of-competition drug test.
The AIU, said in its ruling that Jepkosgei falsely claimed that her sister had been in a car accident in Kenya and that she had been hospitalised.
Jepkosgei’s suspension started Feb. 1, 2021 and all results are disqualified starting from June 15, 2020.
Her personal bests are 1:58.96 and 4:00.99 both performances are from 2018.
The 29-year-old former Kenyan also holds the Kenyan record for the 1000m event, which she ran in 2:35.30. She is a three-time winner in the Diamond League.
She missed a test on March 18, 2020, when she had previously declared that she would be available for it.
The AIU ruling said Jepkosgei admitted the deception after the Kenyan anti-doping agency investigated her claims.
Someone in Jepkosgei’s corner, should have found a more creative excuse to lie as to why she was unavailable. She gets a C+ for effort.
Not the first faked accident excuse
Greek athletes Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou faked a motorcycle accident when they missed drug tests prior to the 2004 Athens Olympics. The sprinters faced up to four years of jail time, however, received suspended sentences of 31 months.
It was the third drug test the pair had missed in 17 days. Nowadays three in 12 months sets off alarm bells and begins the process of a suspension. On the day they left the hospital police raided the premises of their coach and discovered 30 boxes of anabolic steroids and 1,400 boxes of supplements containing the banned stimulant ephedrine.
Following the Marion Jones’s steroid use sage, Thanou, who finished second behind Jones in the 100m at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, was next to be awarded the gold medal, but due to Thanou’s cheating, Jones’ gold medal was withheld by the IOC, Thanou remaining a silver medallist, which was more than she deserved.
Kenteris gets to keep his Sydney gold medal.
Sex machine, Dennis Mitchell
American sprinter Dennis Mitchell in the late 1990s claimed that the reason he had tested positive for testosterone, was that he had sex with his wife four times the evening before he was selected for an out-of-competition test April 1999. “It was her birthday, the lady deserved a treat,” testified Mitchell.
He presented scientific evidence to an appeal of the USATF in Chicago that having sex and drinking six bottles of beer had caused his body to produce extra quantities of testosterone, which led to him failing the test. It accepted his defense and lifted a two-year suspension.
He later testified under oath that Coach Trevor Graham injected him with Human Growth Hormone. We wonder if that was before or after he gave his wife her birthday treat.
Poltergeists dope athletes
Sprinters and middle-distance runners are not the only creative dopers-cum-liars.
National Football League wide receiver Jeremy Kerley blamed ghosts on his positive doping test for nandrolone.
“There’s a lot of ghosts around here. Maybe a ghost put it in me. You know the Ghost of Christmas Past? A ghost might have put it in me. I don’t know.”
The NFL handed him a four-game suspension. As soon as he returned from suspension, Kerley was released by his club New York Jets.
