Legendary Irish athlete Sonia may get two World Championship gold medals after her 1993 rivals, dominant Chinese runners who became known as ‘Ma’s Army’, have admitted in a letter they were ‘forced to take large doses of illegal drugs’.
Sonia told the Anton Savage Show on Today FM that she will “be surprised if two gold medals turn up” but said she will be satisfied if an IAAF investigation into the admission results in a change of the records.
She revealed she would have been the World Record holder for eight years, and that record would give her more satisfaction than the actual medals.
“Two medals in a package will not make any difference to me,” she said, adding what will give her even more satisfaction is knowing that she was right to be suspicious of ‘Ma’s Army’ all those years ago. “Knowing that something you questioned was right... that will give me a lot of satisfaction, just to know that more than anything else.”
The legendary Cork runner, now resident in Australia, may be in line for two belated World Championship gold medals as runners who finished either side of her in 1993 finals have admitted to doping.
The notoriously dominant Chinese women’s distance runners of the early 1990s known as “Ma’s Army” (as they all trained under Ma Junren) came to prominence at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart. Sonia was was run out of the medals by Chinese athletes in the 3,000 metres, (where she finishing 4th) and in the 1,500m (where she finished second and took silver).
Sonia O'Sullivan on her way to a silver medal finish at the 1993 World Championships. Pic: INPHO/Billy Stickland
Commonly referred to a ‘the Chinese takeaway’ Sonia revealed to Anton Savage that questions were being asked of the athletes when they first came to prominence in 1993, with people “wondering how they were so much better than everybody else in the world”. "We always had our suspicions" she says.
She raised the level of her training to compete with them, but eventually got injured as it was so hard to keep up. When she returned to action in 1994, the Chinese athletes weren’t around. “They just didn’t turn up” she remembers, which aroused even more suspicions.
She told Anton she moved on from it, and “never really let it get me down” She said if the truth is revealed she and others will have their doubts proved right. “You must be given the benefit of doubt, no matter how good you are,” she said.
The athlete revealed the revelations came “totally out of the blue” with Sonia waking to the news in Australia when a friend emailed her. She has yet to hear from the IAAF.
ILLEGAL DRUGS
Chinese state media reports that all 9 of Ma’s Army were forced to take “large doses of illegal drugs over the years”,
One of the runners, Wang Junxia – who won the 10,000m in Stuttgart, and also the gold medal over 5,000m at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, where O’Sullivan was forced to drop out - allegedly revealed all in a letter, which was signed by all nine athletes.
It was sent to a journalist but remained unpublished for 19 years.
The IAAF, governing body of world athletics, has launched a probe and announced its intention to pursue the implications of Junxia’s admission, by verifying the letter.
According to IAAF rule 263.3, if an athlete makes an admission of guilt the association can “take action” – perhaps clearing the way for O’Sullivan to be retrospectively awarded another two World Championship gold medals, to go with the 5,000m gold from 1995.
According to South China Morning Post, the letter was penned two years after Junxia set two world records in the 3,000m and 10,000m races. She wrote about how the athletes tried to avoid the doping regime by throwing away pills forced on them but she said Ma Junren would inject the drugs into his athletes
