Less than a month away from the World Championships in Moscow, sprinting has succumbed once again to the shame of doping as American Tyson Gay and Jamaican Asafa Powell were caught out.
The 30-year-old Gay insisted he made a mistake in erroneously trusting someone he shouldn’t have.
Powell confirmed he too had failed a dope test, one of five Jamaicans reportedly to have done so at their country’s national trials. The 2007 world champion Gay would have gone into the worlds not as favourite, but as close a fancied challenger to Usain Bolt as anyone could be.
He had posted the fastest 100m time of the year with 9.75sec, almost two tenths quicker than Bolt’s best effort in 2013. Alongside Yohan Blake, who has been suffering with a thigh injury this season, Gay is the second fastest man of all time with his 9.69sec managed in Shanghai in 2009 bettered only by Bolt himself.
Powell had not qualified for the worlds but had the third fastest 100m time this year and is the fourth fastest man in history, behind Bolt, Gay and Blake. Gay was majestic in cruising to a 100m and 200m double at the American World Championship trials in June.
Yet following fast on the heels of Jamaica’s double Olympic 200m champion Veronica Campbell-Brown’s own failed dope test, this latest news is another crushing blow to the credibility of sprinting.