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Daniel Moss

A regime of state-sponsored doping has been detailed in a letter from world record holding Chinese runner Wang Junxia and the squad of nine runners nicknamed Ma’s Army to a journalist, mainland media reports.
Wang revealed in 1995 that she and her teammates were forced to take “large doses of illegal drugs over the years”, according to a report that surfaced this week.
After inquiries from the South China Morning Post, the International Association of Athletics Federations launched a probe into Wang’s allegations.
The probe aims to verify the letter and, if proven to be from the runners, has consequences for their titles, medals and reputations.
The letter was penned two years after Wang set two world records in the 3,000 metres and 10,000 metres  – marks that stand today.
We are humans, not animals
Chinese women’s athletic team members
She wrote about how the women on the team tried to avoid the state-run doping regime by quietly throwing away pills forced on them.
But she said coach Ma Junren would personally inject the drugs into his athletes, who became known as Ma’s Army.
The letter, signed by nine teammates and revealing their anguish, was sent to a journalist named Zhao Yu, but it remained unpublished for 19 years.
LOOK BACK: In 2004 the Post wrote Stay drug-free, Chinese athletes told
“We are humans, not animals,” said the team members in one passage.
“For many years, [he] forced us to take a large dose of illegal drugs. It was true,” they added in their letter to Zhao.
The letter was published on Tencent Sports.
“Our feelings are sorry and complex when exposing his (Ma’s) deeds,” the letter continued.
“We are also worried that we would harm our country’s fame and reduce the worth of the gold medals we have worked very hard to get.”
Wang was honoured with a place in the International Association of Athletics Federations’ Hall of Fame for her “notable” achievements in 1993, when she set records in a bouquet of championships held in Tianjin, Stuttgart and Beijing.
In Beijing, she took nearly 42 seconds off the 10,000m race record, achieving a time no runner has been able to beat in more than 20 years.
The name of the “illegal drug” was not revealed, and Wang does not appear on the Monaco-based athletics federation’s list of athletes currently banned for doping. She retired from athletics in 1997.
A spokesman for the IAAF said the organisation would seek to authenticate the letter.
“The IAAF’s first action must be to verify that the letter is genuine,” said spokesman Chris Turner. “In this respect, the IAAF has asked the Chinese Athletics Association to assist it in that process.”
According to IAAF competition rule 263.3, if an athlete makes an admission of guilt then the association can “take action”.
LOOK BACK: Wang Junxia tells the Post she’s no doper, her success fueled by ‘eating bitterness’
After advice from the Medical and Anti-Doping Commission, an internal IAAF body, the athletes could be stripped of their titles.
Further, according to World Anti-Doping Agency rules, Wang’s admission could carry penalties such as disqualification of results, the imposition of a period of ineligibility, mandatory publication of the violation and financial sanctions.
During the mid-90s and under Ma’s coaching, Chinese track and field athletes set dozens of world records.
They destroyed any chance of any female human breaking those records in the next 100 years
PattiSue Plumer
Ma said his intense training regime in the Tibetan alps, a ban on long hair and dating, Chinese women’s perceived capacity for ‘eating bitterness’ and his exotic elixers of turtle blood and powdered seahorses given to his runners were behind the success, and has consistently denied the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Wang also ruled out the use of drugs as in 2004.
But others believed in the simple answer that performance-enhancing drugs were at its heart.
Two-time US Olympian PattiSue Plumer told the Chicago Tribune in 1995 that she thought drugs were involved.
“They destroyed any chance of any female human breaking those records in the next 100 years,” Plumer said.
The 1994 Swimming World Championships in Rome were besieged with rumours that Chinese athletes were doping as records fell, and after the national women’s swimming team appeared with deep voices and built-up physiques.
According to a team doctor, Xue Yinxian, experimenting with human growth hormones and steroids was “rampant in the 1980s”, she told Fairfax Media in Australia in 2012.
It was not just rogue individuals but a team strategy, she said.


Forced state-sponsored doping revealed by China athletes who now risk loss of world records, titles and medals

OSP61:OLYMPICS-ATHLETICS: ATLANTA, GA, 28 JUL 96 - Wang Junxia of China celebrates with her country's flag after winning the women's 5000 meter event to earn the Gold medal July 28 at the Olympic stadium in Atlanta. fsp/Photo by Jerry Lampen REUTERS

NG SIU-CHING (with baton) AND WANG JUNXIA LEAD HK -BEIJING RELAY MARATHON TO CELEBRATE HANDOVER AT WAN CHAI SPORTS GROUND.

Wang Junxia drapes herself in the Chinese flag after winning the 5,000m race at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Photo: Reuters

Doping report: Corruption ‘embedded’ in IAAF with Lamine Diack running fiefdom  

epa05101710 (FILE) A file picture dated 14 August 2009 of Lamine Diack, President of the International Athletics Federation (IAAF), during a press conference on a joint meeting of IOC and IAAF in Berlin, Germany. Former IAAF president Lamine Diack was responsible for the corruption at the ruling athletics body and his successor Sebastian Coe must also have been aware of the schemes and doping practices in Russia, according to an anticipated report presented by by an independent commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on 14 January 2016. EPA/RAINER JENSEN *** Local Caption *** 52362287

epa05101711 (FILE) A file picture dated 10 August 2013 of Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and then IAAF President Lamine Diack casting a shadow as they watch the opening ceremony for the 14th IAAF World Championships at Luzhniki stadium in Moscow, Russia. Former IAAF president Lamine Diack was responsible for the corruption at the ruling athletics body and his successor Sebastian Coe must also have been aware of the schemes and doping practices in Russia, according to an anticipated report presented by an independent commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on 14 January 2016. EPA/SERGEI ILNITSKY *** Local Caption *** 52362429

FILE - In this Friday, Oct. 5, 2012 file photo, Liliya Shobukhova from Russia responds to a question during a news conference of elite runners participating in the Chicago Marathon, in Chicago. The son of former IAAF president Lamine Diack and two Russian officials were banned from track and field for life on Thursday, Jan. 7, 2015 for engaging in blackmail, bribery and extortion to cover up a Russian doping case. The sanctions centered on the case of Russian marathoner Liliya Shobukhova, who was allegedly extorted out of hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid a doping ban before the 2012 London Olympics. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, file)

FILE - In this May 15, 2009 file photo current president of the IAAF Sebastian Coe, left, with then president of the IAAF Lamine Diack look at a map of the site of the London 2012 Olympics in London. Pound’s commission found that former IAAF president Diack ``was responsible for organizing and enabling the conspiracy and corruption” that took place as the World Anti-Doping Agency, WADA announced Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, file)

FILE - In this Aug. 10, 2013 file photo, Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and IAAF President Lamine Diack attend the opening ceremony for the World Athletics Championships at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia. The leader of track's governing body told a lawyer he'd need to cut a deal with Putin to ensure nine Russian athletes accused of doping wouldn't compete at 2013 world championships in Moscow, according to a new report on the scandal that reached the top of the sport and country. (Mikhail Klimentyev/RIA-Novosti, Presidential Press Service, File)

World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) former president, Dick Pound (C), who heads the commission into corruption and doping in athletics, and commission members Richard McLaren (L) and Guenter Younger (2R), address a news conference in Unterschleissheim near Munich, Germany, January 14, 2016. Corruption within the world athletics body IAAF was not a result of renegade individuals' actions but was embedded in the organisation, the head of an independent commission on doping in athletics will say in his report on Thursday, according to the media. REUTERS/Michael Dalder

World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) former president, Dick Pound, who heads the commission into corruption and doping in athletics, gestures at a news conference in Unterschleissheim near Munich, Germany, January 14, 2016. Corruption within the world athletics body IAAF was not a result of renegade individuals' actions but was embedded in the organisation, the head of an independent commission on doping in athletics will say in his report on Thursday, according to the media. REUTERS/Michael Dalder

Wada’s second report accuses former IAAF preisdent Lamine Diack of being responsible for the corruption at the ruling athletics body. Photo: EPA

Life ban handed down to disgraced Diack in athletics doping blackmail scandal

FILE - In this Sunday, Aug. 18, 2013 file photo, Russian Athletics Federation President Valentin Balakhnichev, right, and deputy mayor of Moscow Alexander Gorbenkov, left, attend the closing ceremony at the World Athletics Championships in the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow, Russia. The son of former IAAF president Lamine Diack and two Russian officials have been banned from track and field for life after an ethics investigation into extortion and doping cover-ups, it was announced Thursday, Jan. 7, 2016. Banned for life were Papa Massata Diack, who worked as an IAAF consultant; former Russian athletics federation head Valentin Balakhnichev; and Alexei Melnikov, former head coach of Russia's race-walking and long-distance running programs. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

epa05080550 Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko speaks during his end of the year press conference in Moscow, Russia, 25 December 2015. EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV

FILE - In this Thursday, Aug. 20, 2015 file photo, then President of the International Association of Athletics Federations Lamine Diack speaks during the press conference at the IAAF Congress at the National Convention Center in Beijing. Newspaper Le Monde says former IAAF President Lamine Diack told French police he asked for 1.5 million euros ($1.6 million) from Russia to help finance the political opposition in his native Senegal. The request came at a time when the IAAF was dealing with a slew of Russian doping cases. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)

epa05019685 IAAF President Lord Sebastian Coe speaks during the 'Future Decoded' conference in London, Britain, 10 November 2015. A World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) commission on 09 November 2015 recommended athletics governing body IAAF to suspend Russian athletes from competition as it reported on its investigation into systematic doping in Russia. EPA/FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA

Disgraced former Russian Athletics Federation president Valentin Balakhnichev (right) was all smiles when he joined Moscow deputy mayor Alexander Gorbenkov at the closing ceremony of the World Athletics Championships in Moscow in August 2013. Balakhnichev has now been banned for life for his role in extortion and doping cover-ups. Photo: AP

Unprecedented action on doping needed to restore the image of athletics

Members of the International Association of Athletics Federations will meet to discuss whether to bar Russia from the Olympics. Photo: EPA

More athletics doping revelations ahead as author of shock report says part two even more explosive

Richard W. Pound IOC Member from Canada talks to Natalia Zhelanova advisor to the Minister of Sport of the Russian Federation during the World Anti-Doping Agency(WADA) Foundation meeting on November 18, 2015 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) on November 13, 2015 provisionally suspended Russia from events but left the door open for the country's athletes to compete in Rio. AFP PHOTO TOM KIMMELL

A view through a fence, decorated with the Olympic rings, shows the head office of the Russian Federal Research Centre of Physical Culture and Sports (VNIIFK), on the territory of which a laboratory accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is located, in Moscow, Russia, November 11, 2015. The sportswoman who blew the whistle on doping in Russian athletics has moved to a secret location abroad, pursued by a barrage of criticism from former colleagues and officials at home who accuse her of betraying her country. Picture taken November 11, 2015. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin/Files

Pavel Kolobkov Deputy Minister of Sport Russian Federation shakes hands with Richard W. Pound IOC Member Canada after a World Anti-Doping Agency(WADA) Foundation press conference on November 18, 2015 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) on November 13, 2015 provisionally suspended Russia from events but left the door open for the country's athletes to compete in Rio. AFP PHOTO/ TOM KIMMELL

(FILES) -- This file photo taken on August 14, 2009 in Berlin shows Athletics' world ruling body IAAF President Lamine Diack during a press conference on the sideline of the 2009 IAAF Athletics World Championships. Former International Association of Athletics Federations president Lamine Diack has resigned from his position as an honorary member of the International Olympic Committee, the organisation said in an email sent to AFP on November 11, 2015. Diack is provisionally suspended by the IOC while he is investigated by French police over allegations he took bribes to cover up positive drugs tests when in charge of the IAAF. AFP PHOTO / FABRICE COFFRINI

Dick Pound talks to Natalia Zhelanova, advisor to the Minister of Sport of the Russian Federation, during the World Anti-Doping Agency Foundation meeting on November 18, 2015 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Photo: AFP

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