Medallist who taunted Aussie champion tests positive to banned drugs
The athlete who won silver behind Australian race walker Isaac Beacroft at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games has been provisionally suspended for testing positive to banned substances.
Kenya’s Stephen Ndangiri Kihu, who taunted Beacroft throughout the men’s 10,000-metre race walk final, has tested positive to peptide hormones, growth factors and Erythropoietin (EPO).
Isaac Beacroft and Stephen Ndangiri Kihu during the men’s 10,000 race walk final. Getty Images.
If Ndangiri Kihu is stripped of his silver medal, Canada’s Evan Dunfee will be promoted from bronze to silver and Australia’s Declan Tingay from fourth to bronze.
Only five athletes started the race and one of them, Australia’s Tim Fraser, was disqualified for technical faults.
Ndangiri Kihu, 20, is listed as a provisionally suspended athlete on the official website of the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya (ADAK). It’s noted he received the sanction on August 5.
The race for gold in Glasgow turned out to be a race in two, between Beacroft and Ndangiri Kihu.
Beacroft stormed past the Kenyan with 300m to go and cruised towards the finish line, revving up the crowd as he did so.
“I knew he would be there waiting for me to kick because he was kind of taunting me that entire race telling me to go around and lead,” Beacroft, 19, told reporters post-race.
“And I just said, ‘In your dreams, champ. This is not happening today’.
“I knew he’d come around me, and then as soon as he did I thought I’d really drop the hammer and see if I could break him, and I did.”
