Athletics Africa Magazine

GABORONE (BOT): Botswana´s 800m Olympian Onalenna Baloyi is reported to have failed a doping test and has been suspended for two years and will miss Commonwealth Games in India. In last edition 2006 in Melbourne he was a finalist. Baloyi clocked this year 1:46.32 and has a personal best of 1:46.06 from 2005. The country's top Olympic official, Mmegi Serufho said on Friday the positive test could have been avoided if Botswana had better facilities at home. PHILADELPHIA (USA): Olympic medallist and multiple world record holder Meseret Defar will make her half-marathon debut at the ING Rock ‚n‘ Roll Philadelphia Half-Marathon on Sunday, September 19, organizers told Race Results Weekly earlier this week. For Defar, 26, the race will be more than twice as long as her previous longest race on the roads, the World‘s Best 10-K in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 2007. The two-time Olympic Marathon silver medallist Catherine Ndereba, Ethiopia‘s Derartu Tulu and Werknesh Kidane are also in th...

The news this week that Nigeria's up and coming 400m hurdles prodigy, Amaka Ogoegbunam has tested positive for steroids came as a rude shock to me. Worse still, she's the third athlete in the Nigerian camp tainted with a drug episode in a matter of weeks. Vivian Chukwuemeka, 2002 Commonwealth Games Shot put gold medallist, and 100m runner Gloria Kemasuode has already been sent packing from the camp in Berlin for returning positive A samples at the Nigerian trias in Abuja last month. Similarly, Amaka was also reported to have tested positive for the same performance-enhancing anabolic steroid 'Metonolone' the others were busted for during the African junior championships in Bambous end of July. Another issue in camp in Berlin is that most of the athletes have not been paid their allowances, despite the fact that they have been short-changed by four days already. The athletes were supposed to be paid $100 each daily from the day they entered the Camp, but that was readj...

Last season, Nigerian born Spanish hurdler , Josephine Nkiruka Onyia was flying in the grand Prix circuit. From Oslo to Lausanne to Berlin she was the new kid on the block. She won the 100m hurdles in last year's Golden League meetings in Oslo and Berlin. Then, all of a sudden, news came out that the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) want the 22-year-old runner banned for two years for allegedly returning two positive tests in post-race doping controls last year. The Spanish Athletics Federation's disputed the test results and refused to punish her in both cases. They exonerated her after a positive test for an unnamed stimulant following an event in Lausanne on September 2 and for a banned anabolic agent - believed to be Clenbutero l - after winning the 100-metre hurdles at the World Athletics Final in Stuttgart , Germany, on September 13. Clenbuterol is regarded by the World Anti-Doping Agency as an anabolic agent. Its deliberate use carries a two...