Sonia O'Sullivan may be awarded two gold medals

Irish athletics legend Sonia O'Sullivan may be in line for a belated gold medal (possibly two) from the 1993 World Athletics Championships.

It's emerging that the Chinese winners of both the 3,000m and 1,500m races at those Championships were taking performance enhancing drugs. O'Sullivan was beaten into 4th place in the 3,000m with Chinese competitors taking all of the places on the podium. However, she battled back for the 1,500m race, claiming silver.

The Chinese athletes who won those races were a part of 'Ma's Army', the team of athletes who trained under the deeply regimental coach Ma Junren. According to the one of the most prominent of those runners, Wang Junxia, they were forced to take large doses of illegal drugs over the years. Junxia detailed the regime of state-sponsored doping in a letter which was signed by her and all eight of her teammates.

It's likely now that the names and records of those athletes will be stripped from the record books and the gold medals from the 3,000m and 1,500m races will go to O'Sullivan. They will be added to the 5,000m World Championships gold medal she won in 1995.

Although it's nice that truth has finally come out and O'Sullivan will surely be sickened by the manner in which she would receive the medals. She was robbed of her moment on the podium in 1993 and that is a crime for which she'll never be able to get the justice she deserves.

Via The Irish Times