Risking jail abroad: Germany to jail foreign athletes who fail test in their tourneys

Kenyan athletes had better be warned. Doping in sport is due to become a crime in Germany for the first time, with a proposed law being presented at the Bundestag in Berlin tomorrow before being put to Parliament in Spring of next year.

The proposal, which was put on the stocks by the new German Government in its coalition agreement, would include jail terms of up to three years for elite athletes found guilty of taking performance-enhancing drugs.

About 7,000 German professional athletes who are covered by the national testing programme will be affected by the new law, which would not extend to recreational athletes.

Foreign athletes caught doping while competing in Germany would also risk prison, as would doctors or others found to have provided drugs, with jail terms of up to 10 years being envisaged.

Many Kenyan athletes run in German marathons and road races, including Berlin and Frankfurt, where they have set world records including the reigning 2:02:57, which was set in Berlin in September and the previous one by Wilson Kipsang of 2:03:23 September 2013 and Patrick Makau’s 2:03:38 in September 2011.

Doping was pushed into the limelight in Germany last year following a report into the historic use of performance-enhancing drugs.

The subject hit the headlines again during the Sochi Winter Olympics when German double Olympic gold medal-winning biathlete Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle returned a positive doping test.

She was ejected from the Games and subsequently banned for two years by the International Biathlon Union (IBU), while an identical ban has been awarded to former Russian champion Irina Starych.

Sachenbacher-Stehle won cross-country skiing gold medals at Salt Lake City 2002 and Vancouver 2010 before focusing on the ski-shoot discipline in recent years.

But, after finishing fourth in the mass start event in Sochi, she tested positive for banned stimulant dimethylamylamine, which is also known as methylhexanamine, and was sent home by the German team.

Although at the time she blamed contaminated food supplements for the result, she did not challenge the result of the International Olympic Committee Disciplinary Commission.