A big story has broken from Chinese State media that could see much loved Irish Olympian Sonia O'Sullivan awarded World Championship gold medals in the wake of a drug scandal.
Chinese long-distance runners shot to prominence in the Stuttgart World Championships of 1993, where Sonia finished 4th behind three Chinese women in 3000m event, and second place behind a Chinese runner in the 1500m.
All of these Chinese runners were trained under coach Ma Junren, and now a whistle-blower has emerged from within that team as Wang Junxia, who won the 10000m even in Stuttgart, and 5000m at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, has claimed that all of those athletes were forced to take large amounts of illegal drugs.
Wang Junxia's admission of enforced doping so sad. Went to China to interview her 14 yrs ago. Said she was hit with a stick while training
— Simon Hart (@SiHart) February 4, 2016
Junxia wrote a letter detailing the state supported doping and had it signed by nine of her teammates, but after sending the letter to a journalist in order for it to be published, it never saw the light of day. But now the truth has emerged and the IAAF already announced that they will attempt to verify the letter and will investigate the matter.
The letter explains how female athletes initially started discarding the pills that were pushed on them, but soon Ma Junren began personally injecting his athletes. It's a shocking story, and it is highly possible that should the IAAF indeed prove the claims to be true, all athletes involved could have their medals stripped, in which case Sonia would be award two more World championship gold medals, to sit beside her 1995 gold medal in her trophy cabinet.
We'll keep you updated on this as we learn more.
via The Irish Times
