It was revealed Sunday night that a whopping eight of the top ten 100 metre male sprinters have tested positive for banned substances.
Among those on the list are Jamaica's Asafa Powell and America's Tyson Gay, the number four and two fastest men in the world respectively, as well as four other members of the highly successful Jamaican team.
Powell and his teammates, including Olympic 4x100m relay silver medallist Sherone Simpson, tested positive at their national championships last month. Both their samples were found to contain the banned amphetamine oxilofrine, while Gay tested for an unnamed substance on May 16.
Given the dark and drug-addled past 25 years of athletics, these revelations weren't exactly shocking (it didn't make the front or back page of many of today's newspapers), but it was startling to see images, like this one posted by Olympic pole vaulter Kate Dennison, floating around Facebook and Twitter last night.
Interesting... pic.twitter.com/2whN7fORWc
— Kate Dennison (@KateDennison) July 14, 2013
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The names of those who have tested positive are crossed out in red and those implicated in taking steroids with a question mark next to them, the list of the fastest 100m sprinters looks gutted: almost half of the top 25 are cheats, while only two of the current top ten have not been implicated in PED scandals, as this infographic by Newstalk FM shows:
This news comes off the back of Veronica Campbell-Brown's positive test last month. The double Olympic and double World Championships gold medal winning 200m and 100m sprinter has been suspended for failing a drugs test and is currently being investigated by the The Jamaican Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA).
Earlier this month Usain Bolt denied using steroids ahead the Diamond League meeting in Paris.
