Doping in Sport - Bi-Weekly Press round-up #254

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Every Monday and Thursday, I send this newsletter to paid subscribers summarising all the major doping stories in the press over the past seven days.

• The Kenyan 10,000m racewalker Stephen Ndangiri tested positive for EPO before winning a silver medal at the recent Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. “A sample collected from the 20-year-old in an out-of-competition test on June 30, 2026 when Team Kenya was in camp at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani, has tested positive for the banned substances,” (link). Canada’s Evan Dunfee, who has been outspoken about doping issues (link), finished in the bronze medal position behind Ndangiri.

• The German 100m national champion Owen Ansah has now been formally charged for allegedly refusing a drug test by the country’s anti-doping agency. The Olympic sprinter is not provisionally suspended and will compete at the European Championships this week. He has, however, been removed from the relay events by the German athletics federation after consultations with its coaching staff. “Ansah himself explained that he was surprised by the inspector ‘outside my time slot’ and had requested the sample,” (link).

• The Colombian cyclist Wilmar Paredes won the first stage of the Vuelta a Colombia for Team Medellin, who were suspended in March after two of its riders were charged with alleged doping offences (link). The team were banned for 30 days after Aldemar Reyes Ortega and Fabio Andres Duarte Arevalo were charged with abnormalities in their Athlete Biological Passports within six weeks of each other; “The UCI ADR provide for the suspension of a team when two or more of its riders or staff receive notice of certain types of asserted anti-doping rule violations” (link). The 49-year-old cyclist Oscar Sevilla, who was exposed as a client of the blood doping doctor Eufemiano Fuentes in 2006, also rides for the team (link).

• The 1997 Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich said he did not speak publicly about his doping when caught in 2006 because he ‘loved the sport too much’. “His own involvement was connected to Operacion Puerto, the Spanish investigation into doctor Eufemiano Fuentes and a blood-doping network involving elite athletes. Ullrich continued to deny doping after his retirement before eventually acknowledging his past publicly in 2023,” (link). Meanwhile, the winner of the Tour de France in 2006, Oscar Pereiro, recalled the two doping scandals at the event that year, involving Ullrich’s doctor Eufemiano Fuentes and Floyd Landis, who tested positive for testosterone; “I don’t want to live in this rotten world or feel like a criminal practicing a sport that costs me a lot of effort every day” (link).

• An official at the Luxembourg anti-doping agency was interviewed by Luxemburger Wort about the nighttime doping controls conducted at the Tour de France. “Blood transfusions have been detected multiple times in the past, often at unusual times,” (link).

• The Roadman Podcast interviewed an author about his new book on doping titled ‘Dope’ (link). You can purchase the book here (link).

• The former US Open champion Andy Roddick said that the 2023 Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova’s version of events surrounding her drug test refusal did not represent those detailed in the decision in her case, which was published last week. The attempt to test Vondrousova was conducted outside of her regular 1-hour time slot, and Roddick says that doping controls are easier to ‘avoid’ if players know when to expect them. “I was certainly one of the ones that thought it was, the protocols were harsh when they happened. And it seems like the presented sequence of events from the Vondrousova side, maybe weren’t what were represented at first, which is disappointing,” (link). You can read the full decision here (link). Meanwhile, The Guardian published an opinion piece titled ‘Vondrousova’s antics put tennis doping tests in spotlight – a far cry from football’s view’ (link).

• In a podcast appearance I missed earlier this year, the Australian tennis player Thomas Fancutt, who was banned for 10 months after undergoing a prohibited intravenous infusion, was interviewed on the Good Humans Podcast With Cooper Chapman. “The only thing that I have done different that could be dodgy is going to the clinic,” (link). Shortly before Fancutt’s case, the Wimbledon 2022 doubles champion Max Purcell, from Australia, was also banned for undergoing an intravenous infusion (link). There have been two further doping cases involving Australian tennis players recently: Marinko Matosevic (link) and Dayne Kelly (link). In March, Bounces published an article titled ‘Does Australian Tennis Have a Doping Problem’ (link).

• The Australian pharmacist Marcus Leong is alleged to have committed ‘professional misconduct’, by the country’s pharmacy regulator, for dispensing hormones despite having a ‘conflict of interest’ with the sports scientist Stephen Dank, who is banned for life for trafficking doping substances while working with Essendon Football Club. “The board alleges Mr Dank handed Mr Leong a ‘bundle of computer generated prescriptions’ which the pharmacist then dispensed, including 52 quantities of the ‘relevant medication’ to 12 patients, with some dispensed to a patient named as ‘Stephen Danks’,” (link). Last year, I published an investigation about the tennis player Novak Djokovic’s continuing association with the struck-off oxygen therapy ‘doctor’ Malcolm Hooper who treated Essendon Football Club players, at the behest of Stephen Dank; “As part of an AFL investigation, the organisation said that Hooper had reportedly injected the players with amino acids that he had sourced from a patient” (link).

• A British rugby league player was banned for six years after testing positive for GW1516, tamoxifen as well as the anabolic agents ostarine and drostanalone. UK Anti-Doping has not disclosed the identity of the player who has competed for over twenty years, according to the decision in the case. “Athlete Q accepted that he had Used the prohibited substances as part of a personal bodybuilding program but that he had no intention of gaining any advantage in his performance as an amateur rugby player,” (link).

• The Miami Marlins baseball player Eiver Mosquera was banned for 80 games after testing positive for the anabolic steroid boldenone. “Mosquera is the ninth player disciplined this year for a drug violation. Atlanta outfielder Jurickson Profar was suspended for the entire season on March 3 after testing positive for exogenous testosterone,” (link).

• The young Tunisian weightlifter Aziz Mannai was banned for four years after testing positive for testosterone. “The athlete tested positive for the exogenous origin of testosterone and adiols after providing an in-competition sample during the 2022 African Youth & Junior Championships in Casablanca, Morocco,” (link). Meanwhile, the Nigerian weightlifter Lucky Joseph was also suspended after also testing positive for an anabolic agent (link).

• The US para-snowboarder Steven Cantwell was banned for an additional four years for refusing a drug test while serving his existing six-year suspension. “On May 7, 2026, Cantwell notified USADA of his intent to retire. Therefore, Cantwell’s period of ineligibility will continue indefinitely until he returns from retirement and serves the remainder of his sanctions,” (link). In 2025, Cantwell tested positive for the anabolic steroid turinabol and admitted to using testosterone between 2022 and 2023 (link). The athlete was selected to represent the USA at the World Championships in 2025 (link).

• The French equestrian rider Sebastien Cavaillon had his horse suspended for 30 days after testing positive for the corticosteroid dexamethasone. “At first, he believed it was an act of sabotage, but the thorough investigations we conducted with the assistance of a court-appointed veterinary expert revealed an unintentional food contamination, which is in no way attributable to my client,” (link).

• The French anti-doping agency said at a press conference that it will conduct more doping controls in amateur sport going forward (link).

• Three papers were published titled ‘The effect of intravenous fluids administered prior to competition: A randomized clinical [trial]’ (link), ‘Monitoring Estra-4,9-Diene-3,17-Dione Exposure in Equine Hair’ (link) and ‘Development and evaluation of a values-based anti-doping education program for university sport in Japan: the UNIVAS clean sports intervention’ (link).

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If you have confidential information about doping in elite sport to share, please reach out to me, Edmund Willison, on honestsport@substack.com.

I have undertaken major doping investigations for British newspapers (link) and international broadcasters such as ITV and ARD. For discussions regarding potential doping investigations at your news organisation, please contact honestsport@substack.com.