Kenyan distance runner Suleiman Simotwo has been sanctioned with a four year ban after returning an adverse analytical finding (AAF) for norandrosterone, a metabolite of nandrolone, at the Vienna City Marathon on 23 April last year. Simotwo will also lose his fifth place finish in the marathon due to the sanction, which was issued by Sport Resolutions after the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) launched a case against the 38 year old in December last year.

Sport Resolutions did not accept Simotwo’s explanation that his AAF could have been caused by a trip to the hospital following a fall in the bath in December 2016, which had rendered him unconscious. ‘He has failed to identify how the Norandosterone entered his system’, reads the decision (PDF below). ‘It is in any event difficult to see how and why anyone in the hospital, to which he was admitted on an emergency basis, should wish to or would in some unspecified way be able to administer Norandosterone to him; nor of course is there any evidence whatsoever that any such person did do so’.

The IAAF also announced its list (PDF below) of athletes sanctioned for a doping offence as of 26 March 2018. The list included a four year sanction issued to British Javelin coach David Burrell. The 53 year old was sanctioned with avoiding a doping test in March, after he refused to provide a doping sample, arguing that he had to go to work.