Paris Olympics sprinter banned 4 years for doping with anabolic steroid
MONACO (AP) — A 100-meter sprinter who tested positive at the Paris Olympics for the type of anabolic steroid used by Ben Johnson at the 1988 Seoul Summer Games claimed at his disciplinary hearing the drug “is unsuited for sprinters.”
A doping tribunal judge banned Dominique Lasconi Mulamba for four years, the Athletics Integrity Unit said Tuesday and published details of the case.
Mulamba tested positive for stanozolol in Paris last August, one day after the Congo athlete placed seventh in his 100 heat clocking 10.53 seconds. He had been a flagbearer for Congo at the opening ceremony held on boats along the River Seine.
At a disciplinary hearing held by video link last month, Mulamba’s lawyer, Benita Sarr-Kindongo, said stanozolol reduces muscle flexibility and is preferred by weightlifters and bodybuilders.
“The use of stanozolol would have negatively impacted his performance rather than enhancing it,” the lawyer argued on the athlete’s behalf, according to the published verdict. “No competitive benefit was gained.”
The anabolic steroid was used 36 years earlier by Johnson before he crossed the finish line first in the 100 meters at the Seoul Olympics in a world-record time. He was later disqualified, stripped of the record and banned for two years in one of the most notorious Olympic doping cases.
“History itself tells a very different story,” lawyers for the AIU argued at the Mulamba hearing, citing Johnson’s case. “It is simply wrong to claim that stanozolol is unsuited for sprinters.”
The 23-year-old Mulamba’s ban expires in August 2028 after the Los Angeles Olympics closes. He can challenge his ban in an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
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