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KINGSTON (AFP) – Jamaica‘s triple Olympic and world champion Usain Bolt‘s sprint training partners Yohan Blake and Marvin Anderson were among four Jamaican runners who have admitted taking banned substances.

Allodin Fothergill and Lansford Spence also are awaiting punishment after their confession to Jamaican officials following months of legal wrangling.

“The athletes have admitted they took a banned substance,” Jamaican Anti-Doping Appeals Tribunal chairman Ransford Langrin said in a statement.

“We have to decide now what is the sanction we apply – and the minimum sanction is a reprimand or up to a two years ban.”

Samples taken at the Jamaican Championships from June 26-28, the qualifying meet for last month’s World Championships in Berlin, were positive for the four as well as Commonwealth Games 100m champion Sheri-Ann Brooks.

All were cleared at first because the substance found was not on the WADA banned list or of similar composition but the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission appealed the finding, saying it had similar chemical structure to tuaminoheptane.

The Jamaica Anti-Doping Appeals Tribunal upheld tossing out the positive test for Brooks because her “B” sample was tested without her knowledge.

But Langrin, a retired Jamaica Court of Appeal judge, said the others have admitted their guilt and a sentence will be imposed upon them on September 14.

Lincoln Eatmon, a member of the athletes’ legal team, was not overly worried about the guilty plea, in part because a greater concern is what punishment WADA or athletics world governing body the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) will impose.

“We have no control over what WADA or the IAAF might do,” he said.

“Even if the athletes are found not guilty, the prospect of them facing a lengthy, expensive battle to go to arbitration on all that, it was felt that we should try to resolve the thing as amicably as possible.”

DELUX Magazine
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