TOKYO 2020: Athletics Kenya sprints poster boy suspended for alleged doping

Sprinter Mark Odhiambo has been barred from competing in the Tokyo Olympics after an adverse analytical finding in his sample and therefore will not line up for the 100m heats scheduled for Saturday 31 July from 1.45 pm (EAT).  

Otieno qualified for the Summer Games, alongside Ferdinand Omanyala during the national Athletics Kenya qualifiers, running on borrowed spikes to post a personal best time of 10.05 behind Omanyala's national record of 10.01. 

"We have an athlete that is alleged to have doped (anabolic steroid). He has requested for B sample test which the AIU has accepted to do. Upon findings,(match or mismatch) then we will release a statement," a statement from Team Kenya's head of delegation Waithaka Kioni released by the team's media officer reads.

Mark however maintains his innocence.

Mark's predicament brings to the fore, memories of the Beijing World Athletics Championships where Joyce Sakari and Francisca Koki were making the headlines for all the wrong reasons as they were barred from participating after making history.

The then Kenyan 400m champion Sakari obliterated her previous national record mark by 0.43 to ease through to the semi-finals of the World Championships in the Chinese City but in the end it did not matter as she was banned. She did not start in her semi final heat.

Earlier on Saturday Nigerian sprinter Blessing Okagbare was also thrown out of the Games after failing a doping test.

She will miss the women's 100 metres semi-finals later on Saturday after it was announced she had tested positive for human growth hormone.