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Journalism of Courage
A positive drug test returned by a Jamaican athlete at the national Olympic trials shouldn’t affect the team’s performance in Beijing, Mike Fennell, head of the Jamaica Olympic association, said.
The unnamed athlete, who was pulled from the national team, is not considered to be a ‘top athlete,’ Fennell said – apparently ruling out 100m world record-holder Usain Bolt and former world record-holder Asafa Powell.
Fennell has refused to confirm whisperings that the athlete may have been a preliminary round runner on one of the relay teams.
“It is a very sensitive and important issue, and we have to be careful with how we treat it,” he said.
Jamaica’s best medal haul at the Olympics was seven in Sydney eight years ago and track and field experts had predicted that the country, with several of the world’s top athletes, could earn as many as 11 medals in Beijing.
Fennell said that the positive test “won’t affect anybody who is clean.”
He added, however that the team “would be extremely disappointed that one of their colleague has let them down.”
There have been several questions in recent months about the super performance of Jamaican athletes.
Adrian Lorde, head of the Caribbean Regional Anti-Doping Organisation, recently lambasted Jamaica for not doing enough doping tests.
However, for Fennell, the fact that the local system caught and is about to expose a cheat is testament to robust testing.
“Everybody is extremely disappointed that one of our athletes has tested positive, but I think it is a warning to everybody that we have a very robust testing system in place, which is working,” he said.
