Ma's Army letter suggests Chinese state-sponsored doping cheated Scottish athletics

On a sunny September Sunday, the news filtered through as the world’s greatest mile runners assembled for a race along Edinburgh’s Princes Street. Despite the presence of Olympic champion Fermin Cacho, world record-holder and double world steeplechase champion Moses Kiptanui, and defending champion David Kibet (1500m champion at the African Games and Dream Mile winner), China dominated the conversation.

In Beijing, the record books had been comprehensively rewritten: nine world records in six days, some beaten by several women in both heats and final. Five women were inside Tatyana Kazankina’s mark of 8.22.63 in two 3,000m heats. Zhang Linli held the 3,000m record for barely 14 minutes, for in the second heat Wang Junxia carved another 10 seconds from it. And in the final, fewer than 24 hours later, the same five all ran even faster, with Wang lowering her mark of the previous day to 8.06.11.

Wang had started the six-day championships by knocking 42 seconds from the 10,000m world best. Then Qu Junxia and Wang dipped below the 1,500m world mark held by Kazankina, from a Soviet regime even then tainted by doping allegations.

Amazement, incredulity, even anger, was the reaction of some athletes and media. Many felt the Chinese had just destroyed endurance running. A month later, Wang led China to the first four places in the World Cup Marathon. That had been on the cards, for Chinese performances in the Tianjin Marathon in the spring, led by the ubiquitous Wang, were the world’s four fastest of 1993 at the distance. China had the five fastest at 1,500m (and 12 in the first 16) that year, three fastest at 2,000m, five fastest at 3,000, and the top four (and 11 out of 15) at 10,000m. At the World Championships in Stuttgart they had swept the 1,500m, 3,000m, and 10,000m titles, each winner taking home a Mercedes.

All this achieved by Ma’s Army.

One explanation he gave was of dietary supplements that included caterpillar fungus and turtles’ blood.

A visiting Chinese sports doctor at Strathclyde, said how, as a girl, she had eaten turtle meat because it helped keep one cool. It could help keep body temperature down and thus improve performance.

“Permit the possibility that with 3,000 years of medicine, China

may know more than the West,”

I was lectured.

Like the rest of a disbelieving world, we were obliged to accept it in the absence of a doping positive.

Within weeks the International Amateur Athletic Federation – whose successor is now under fire for complicity in burying positive doping samples – announced that none of the nine world athletics record-breakers had used drugs. But it did nothing to defuse suspicions. The Asian record had been broken in every single women’s event, including relays.

In 1995, Ma and his wife were hospitalised after he crashed one of the Mercedes won by his girls. While he was laid up, Wang said she and 15 colleagues had rebelled against his dictatorial style and walked out of the training camp. Ten of them, including Wang, signed a letter claiming they had been forced into doping. It accused Ma of abusing and forcing the athletes under him to take “large doses of illegal drugs over the years. Our feelings are sorry and complex when exposing his deeds. 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 moved to a new coach, Mao Dezhen, and won Atlanta Olympic 5,000m gold and silver in the 10,000m. She gave the letter to a reporter who was investigating the case in 1995. It became public only last week. It told how athletes suffered from liver pains, but were allegedly prevented from going to hospital. They reported amenorrhea and coarsening voices. They threw away their pills without Ma’s knowledge, but allege he personally injected them.

The IAAF has asked the Chinese authorities to investigate the veracity of the letter. Under their rules, if an athlete admits to having used a banned substance, then records may be deleted if the case is proven.

But all too late for Liz McColgan, who won World gold at 10,000m in 1991. Olympic silver medallist, and world record holder for 10,000m on the road, she dreamed of being the first woman inside 30 minutes on the track.

“I knew there was no way I was capable of getting down to that [Wang’s time]. So I focussed on the marathon. But for that I might have stayed another couple of seasons on the track at 10,000m. It was about winning medals in the majors. I moved on because I thought I could not compete.

“There’s been an injustice done, but at least we are getting to the truth. If that helps to make a difference moving forward – good. I don’t want my kids running against cheats.

“A lot of people missed out on glory – people who could have been the gold medallist. Lives would have been very different. Sonia O’Sullivan would have had the word record for eight years, and Kirsty Wade was the fastest lassie in the world and never got a thing.

“It does not make any difference to me because I believed all along that they were drug cheats. But it is a relief that it is now actually out there. They have admitted it. But I am not a great believer in going back to the fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-place finishers in championships, and giving them the medals. The way the Chinese ran messed up everybody’s race.”

Without those times, McColgan probably would not have pushed herself to injury. “We all went a bit crazy about mileage, trying to compete with their 140 per week. I went into overdrive. You can only sustain that for so long. I maybe upped my game too much and pushed a wee bitty harder.

“Yvonne [Murray, Olympic bronze medallist] and Kirsty – we were all aware of certain athletes not being clean, not just the Chinese. They were not the only ones cheating. Other things were going on as well. If you’d started wondering about the drugs, you’d never have got out of bed in

the morning.”

Now Liz Nuttall, she is coaching in Doha, where she has a group of 70 hopefuls. She still holds several Scottish records. And Wang’s 10,000m time has not been beaten by a Scot in the national championships since Tommy Murray in 1994.