Breaking News - Sonia O'Sullivan in line for Double Gold Medal Upgrade!!

Presentation of European Championship Bronze medal for 20k Walk to Rob Heffernan at civic reception in Cork City Hall Dec 19th 2014

Sonia O'Sullivan pictured with World 50k Walk Champion Rob Heffernan, on the occasion of the civic reception to celebrate Rob's own upgrade to Eupopean Bronze

L to R: Ciaran O'Cathain, President, Athletics Ireland, Sonia O'Sullivan, Olympian, OCI committee member and World Champion, Rob Heffernan, Olympian and World Champion, Cllr. Mary Shields, Lord Mayor of Cork, John Foley, CEO, AAI, and Liam Hennessy, AAI and Council Member European Athletics.

Location: Lord Mayor's Chambers, City Hall, Cork - photo: John Walshe

Sonia O'Sullivan's IAAF Athlete Profile

Today's Irish Times reports that Sonia O'Sullivan may be in line for a double World Championship Gold Medal upgrade, following confessions by the notorious chinese group known as 'Ma's Family Army.

Athletics Ireland Statement

Athletics Ireland seek clarification from IAAF over Chinese letter

Athletics Ireland is writing to the IAAF today seeking clarification on the reported letter by Chinese athlete Wang Junxia which could lead to Sonia O'Sullivan being awarded two gold medals from the World Championships in 1993.

Athletics Ireland President Professor Ciaran O Cathain said: "We will be seeking clarification from the IAAF who are in the process of verifying the letter by Wang Junxia. There are two gold medals at stake for Sonia O'Sullivan and we hope this can be resolved to finally bring an end to the uncertainty which has hung over the Championships for so long."

This could put O'Sullivan in line for gold over the 1500m and 3,000m from the championships. She finished second over the 1500m and fourth over the 3,000m.

Editorial

In a stunning revelation, by the entire team, the exploits of Ma Junren's Chinese squad, known as Ma's Family army, have been called into question. While the letter of revelation must yet be verified by IAAF and WADA as being genuine, it would appear to confirm what most of us suspected very strongly. This group of Chinese athletes, with little or no pedigree on the international stage, produced phenomenal results over a short period.
"Ten of the top 17 performances all-time in the 3,000m distance are credited to Ma’s Army, all 10 happened within one month in 1993; 13 of the top 29 1500m performances all-time are also credited to Ma’s Army athletes." - Irish Times

While this story is yet in it's infancy, and may take quite some time to run it's course, this news is very welcome. In sport, athletes aspire to the greatest heights. We would hope that they get there by honest toil, graft and endeavour, yet, as we have seen many athletes cheat, sometimes supported and encouraged by their National Federations and even their own governments.

The increasing, and widespread, number of revelations, not only in athletics, but across the entire spectrum of sport and competitive activity - even the card game Bridge! - is extremely disappointing, to say the very least. Nevertheless we have seen the other extreme where athletes, like Sonia O'Sullivan have strode the World stage over prolonged periods, with distinction. It would be foolish to equate longevity at the top with being 'clean', but it would seem impossible for an athlete to maintain a world class standard, while competing prolificly, over a period lasting, in some cases, well over a decade. Remember prolific competition means more extensive testing. Contrast this with 'shooting stars' who emerge from obscurity, reach the very highest in a very short time, and disappear as quickly.

Sonia'O'Sullivan's first competetive race was, in 1984, the Cara 7, in Little Island, Cork, where, as a 12 year old, she ran 40:20, to place 20th, in a field of over 700. Following that she competed mainly in cross-country and track, with Ballymore-Cobh AC. As a fifteen year old, she won the BLE National Senior Cross-Country Championship. Later she attended University at Villanova, in the U.S., before entering the world stage, where she performed, like a collosus, for a a prolonged period. Over the period 1991 to 1996, she was literally 'unbeatable'.

Sonia O'Sullivan has brought, and continues to do so, bring honour and distinction to Cork, and Ireland. Let us hope that today's revelations are verified and that matters move to a conclusion with reasonable speed.

.................... Looking forward to anothe celebration!!

Sonia O'Sullivan's IAAF Record

Honours - 1500 Metres
	Rank	Mark	Wind	Place	Date
8th IAAF World Indoor Championships	9	04:19.4		Lisboa (Atlantic Pavillion)	11-Mar-01
6th IAAF World Championships In Athletics	8	04:07.8		Athína (Olympic Stadium)	05-Aug-97
6th IAAF World Indoor Championships	h2	DNS		Paris-Bercy (Palais Omnisports)	08-Mar-97
XXVI Olympic Games	10h2	04:19.8		Atlanta (Olympic Stadium), GA	31-Jul-96
4th IAAF World Championships in Athletics	2	04:03.5		Stuttgart (Gottlieb-Daimler Stadion)	22-Aug-93

Honours - One Mile
	Rank	Mark	Wind	Place	Date
9th IAAF/Mobil Grand Prix Final	2	04:25.0		London	10-Sep-93

Honours - 3000 Metres
	Rank	Mark	Wind	Place	Date
8th IAAF World Indoor Championships	7	08:44.4		Lisboa (Atlantic Pavillion)	10-Mar-01
IAAF Grand Prix Final	1	08:52.0		Doha (Hamad Bin Suhaim)	05-Oct-00
IAAF Golden League/Grand Prix Final	5	09:03.2		Moskva	05-Sep-98
6th IAAF World Indoor Championships	2	08:46.2		Paris-Bercy (Palais Omnisports)	08-Mar-97
IAAF/Mobil Grand Prix Final	1	08:39.9		Monaco (Stade Louis II)	09-Sep-95
9th IAAF/Mobil Grand Prix Final	1	08:38.1		London	10-Sep-93
4th IAAF World Championships in Athletics	4	08:33.4		Stuttgart (Gottlieb-Daimler Stadion)	16-Aug-93

Honours - 5000 Metres
	Rank	Mark	Wind	Place	Date
28th Olympic Games	14	16:20.9		Athína (Olympic Stadium)	23-Aug-04
9th IAAF World Championships in Athletics	15	15:36.6		Paris Saint-Denis (Stade de France)	30-Aug-03
27th Olympic Games	2	14:41.0		Sydney (Olympic Stadium)	25-Sep-00
8th IAAF World Cup in Athetics	1	16:24.5		Johannesburg (SGJ)	12-Sep-98
6th IAAF World Championships In Athletics	7h2	15:40.8		Athína (Olympic Stadium)	07-Aug-97
XXVI Olympic Games	f	DNF		Atlanta (Olympic Stadium), GA	28-Jul-96
5th IAAF World Championships in Athletics	1	14:46.5		Göteborg (Ullevi Stadium)	12-Aug-95
10th IAAF/Mobil Grand Prix Final	1	15:12.9		Paris	03-Sep-94

Honours - 10,000 Metres
	Rank	Mark	Wind	Place	Date
27th Olympic Games	6	30:53.4		Sydney (Olympic Stadium)	30-Sep-00

Honours - Half Marathon
	Rank	Mark	Wind	Place	Date
13th IAAF World Half Marathon Championships	4	01:10:33		New Delhi	03-Oct-04
11th IAAF World Half Marathon Championships	14	01:10:04		Bruxelles	05-May-02

Honours - Short Race
	Rank	Mark	Wind	Place	Date
30th IAAF/Sport Ireland World Cross Country Championships	7	13:55		Dublin	24-Mar-02
IAAF World Cross Country Championships	f	DNF		Oostende	25-Mar-01
28th World Cross Country Championships	15	13:23		Vilamoura	19-Mar-00
IAAF World Cross Country Championships	1	12:20		Marrakech	22-Mar-98

Honours - Long Race
	Rank	Mark	Wind	Place	Date
28th World Cross Country Championships	7	26:20:00		Vilamoura	18-Mar-00
IAAF World Cross Country Championships	1	25:39:00		Marrakech	21-Mar-98
20th IAAF World Cross Country Championships	7	21:37		Boston, MA	21-Mar-92

Rob Heffernan

Staying with medal upgrades. CAS, the Court of Arbitration in Sport, are due to hear the case of the Russian athletes, RUSADA, and ARAF, on February 26th next. Following this, their findings will be released and, it will be very, very disappointing if Rob's fourth place in the 50k Walk at the 2012 London Olympics is not upgraded to Olympic Bronze.

Irish Times article by Ian O'Riordan
"They say the truth always come out in the end, and perhaps the only surprise about the cold truth now emerging about the notoriously dominant Chinese women’s distance runners of the early 1990s is that it took so long.

Not too long for Sonia O’Sullivan, perhaps, who may be in line for a much-belated World Championship gold medal – possibly even two – after being originally run out of the gold medal positions by those Chinese runners over both 3,000m and 1,500m at the 1993 World Athletics Championships in Stuttgart.

Better known as “Ma’s Army”, given they all trained under the deeply regimental coach Ma Junren, they first came to prominence at those 1993 Championships in Stuttgart: O’Sullivan was run out of all three medals by three Chinese women in the 3,000m, finishing fourth, before bouncing back to claim silver over 1,500m, again behind another Chinese women.

However it now appears likely those names and titles will be stripped from the record books. According to Chinese state media reports, all nine of Ma’s Army were forced to take “large doses of illegal drugs over the years”, according to one of the most prominent of those 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.

Junxia has detailed the regime of state-sponsored doping in a letter, according to reports, including the South China Morning Post. The letter was signed by all nine team-mates.

The IAAF, the governing body of world athletics, has already announced its intention to pursue the implications of her admission, by verifying the letter, which, if proven to be from the runners, will potentially have consequences for their records and medals.

According to IAAF media spokesman Chris Turner, the organisation would seek to authenticate the letter. “The IAAF’s first action must be to verify that the letter is genuine,” said Turner. “In this respect, the IAAF has asked the Chinese Athletics Association to assist it in that process.”

The letter was also published on Tencent Sports, and the South China Morning Post reports that it was originally penned two years after Junxia set two world records in the 3,000 and 10,000 metre races – marks that stand today.

However, Junxia wrote about how the women on the team tried to avoid the state-run doping regime by quietly throwing away pills forced on them. But she said the coach Junren would personally inject the drugs into his athletes.

The letter was sent to a journalist named Zhao Yu, but it remained unpublished for 19 years. According to IAAF competition rule 263.3, if an athlete makes an admission of guilt then the Association can “take action” – and with that perhaps clearing the way for O’Sullivan to be retrospectively awarded another two World Championship gold medals, to go along with the 5,000m gold she won in 1995

“We are humans, not animals,” said the team members in one passage. “For many years, [he] forced us to take a large dose of illegal drugs. It was true...”

“Our feelings are sorry and complex when exposing his [Ma’s] deeds,” the letter continued. “We are also worried that we would harm our country’s fame and reduce the worth of the gold medals we have worked very hard to get.”

Junxia was recently honoured with a place in the IAAF Hall of Fame for her “notable” achievements in 1993, when she set records in a bouquet of championships held in Tianjin, Stuttgart and Beijing. She retired from athletics in 1997.

According to World Anti-Doping Agency rules, Junxia’s admission could also carry retrospective penalties such as disqualification of results, the imposition of a period of ineligibility, mandatory publication of the violation and financial sanctions.

Junren always claimed the success of his women was based on their intense training regime in the Tibetan alps, a ban on long hair and dating: he also hailed Chinese women’s perceived capacity for “eating bitterness” and that his exotic elixers of “turtle blood” and “powdered seahorses” given to his runners were behind the track success, and has consistently denied the use of performance enhancing drugs.

Still, many believed the only answer was performance enhancing drugs. Junxia broke three world records in three events consecutively over a range of distances: her 8:06.11 for 3,000m and 29:31.78 for 10,000 have been effectively untouchable in the 23 years since; indeed she took nearly 42 seconds off the 10,000m. The previous world record was held by Norway’s Ingrid Kristiansen, who ran the Bislett Games 10,000m in Oslo in the time of 30:13.74.

Until last July, nobody had challenged Qu Yunxia’s (fellow Ma’s Army runner) 1500m world record time of 3:50.46 until Ethiopian Genzebe Dibaba ran 3:50.07. Ten of the top-17 performances all-time in the 3,000m distance are credited to Ma’s Army, all 10 happened within one month in 1993; 13 of the top-29 1500m performances all-time are also credited to Ma’s Army athletes."