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The Italian, National Anti-Doping Organization (NADO) has suspended 26 of their athletes for failing to provide doping samples or what they call, “evasion, refusal and failure to submit themselves to providing biological samples”.
Three of the athletes are Daniele Meucci (marathon), Andrew Howe (long jump) and Fabrizio Donato (triple jump).
Howe won the European long jump title in 2006 as well as a silver medal during the 2007 Osaka IAAF World Track and Field Championships.
Donato is the European triple jump champion from 2012 and he won a bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympic Games.
Meucci is the 2014 European marathon champion. He owns a personal best of 2:11:08. He moved up to the marathon after years of competing in the 5,000m and 10,000m distances. He ran the 5,000m as fast as 13:19.00 and the 10,000m in 27:32.86, both in 2012 as well as the half-marathon in 1:01:06. The 5,000m performance is slightly better than the others; however, it could be assumed that if he was cheating, he must have been cheating since at least 2012, based on the consistency of the performances through the distances.
If Howe was doping during or leading up to the 2007 IAAF World Track and Field Championships, then assuming they were clean, he potentially cheated out American Dwight Phillips of a silver and Ukraine’s Olexiy Lukashevych of a bronze medal.
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