The three Russians

Three more Russian athletes have been banned for doping by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) on January 13.

Yevgeniya Kolodko, who competes in shotput is now suspended for two years starting January 11. All of her results between July 4 2012 to July 2 2016 are annulled. Yulia Leantsiuk, a Belarussian who already served a doping ban between 2008 and 2010 will also be upgraded to the bronze medal.

The AIU published that Russian hammer thrower Sergey Litvinov will be stripped of the bronze medal that he won at the 2014 European Championships and is banned for two years from November 2021.

That followed data discovered following analysis of the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) obtained by the World Anti-Doping from the Moscow Laboratory. This is the same LIMS that the Russian prevented the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) from gaining access to as part of their investigation, manipulated data, then gave access.

In 2018, the Russians delayed allowing WADA into the Moscow Laboratory — the centre of the Russian doping crisis — to extra athlete data dubbed Operation LIMS investigation.

Once investigators were allowed in, they found that the data had been manipulated.

According to the publication, Inside the Games, Litvinov, the son of Olympic gold medallist and former world record holder Sergey Litvinov, claimed in a post on Facebook that he had been pressured by the All-Russian Athletics Federation to use performance-enhancing drugs.

She will be stripped of the silver medal she won at the 2014 European Championships in Zurich. Kolodko had already lost the Olympic silver medal she won at the 2012 London Olympic Games. Due to Russia’s systematic doping, it is considered the dirtiest Games in history, which is a lot considering the former East German and Czechoslovakian regimes of the 1970s and 1980s.

Kolodko was at first awarded the bronze medal however was upgraded to silver following the suspension of Nadzeya Ostapchuk from Belarus, after recording her personal best of 20.48m.

Four of her eight global championship finishes have been annulled.

In 2016, she was stripped of the medal after a reanalysis of her blood samples from the competition, which resulted in a positive test for the prohibited substances turinabol and ipamorelin.

The athlete from the Dominican Republic

Long and triple jumper Ana Lucia José Tima from the Dominican Republic has been suspended for the presence of prohibited substance Enobosarm, GW501516 as per an AIU press release. She is a four-time national champion, twice each in the long jump and triple jump. The 33-year-old’s top international standing was seventh at the Lima Pan American Games in 2019.

The Kenyan

Like Russia, cheating seems ubiquitous in Kenya. There appears to be no end. Today it was announced that James Mwangi Wangari has been provisionally suspended for the presence of the prohibited substance norandrosterone. The 28-year-old holds a personal best from the 2016 Copenhagen Half Marathon at 59:07.

His suspension is appealable. Apparently, it is his second suspension.

Football players suspended

Aljazeera reports about match-fixing in Kenya. Apparently, the country is doesn’t limit their cheating to drug taking;

Kenya’s football federation has suspended 14 players and two coaches for match-fixing allegations after receiving a tip-off about cheating in the national league.

Among those suspended on Friday were six players from Zoo Kericho FC, which was found guilty of match-fixing by FIFA’s integrity unit in 2021 and expelled from the Kenyan Premier League.