French runner Ophelie Claude-Boxberger's doping suspension extended

French middle-distance runner Ophelie Claude-Boxberger's doping suspension has been extended to four years. This is two years more than what the AFLD sanctions commission had earlier decided. France's highest administrative court made the announcement on Tuesday (April 26).

Claude-Boxberger had tested positive for the banned blood-booster erythropoietin (EPO) during an out-of-competition test carried out on September 28, 2019. It was prior to the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar, in October that year.

She was suspended for two years in March 2021. The French anti-doping agency thought that the punishment was too lenient and had requested an eight-year ban.

The case was referred to the Conseil d'Etat following the country's anti-doping agency's appeal against an initial decision by its Sanctions Committee, to hand Boxberger a two-year suspension.

The Conseil said in its statement:

"The Conseil d'Etat now considers that neither the two-year period determined by the Sanctions Committee, nor the eight-year period requested by the Agency's presidency, are justified under the Sports Code. It therefore increased the sanction imposed on the athlete to four years."

On 10th December 2020, the 33-year-old athlete Claude-Boxberger took to social media and wrote:

"On this International Human Rights Day, at a time when the AFLD has just notified me of a second violation of the anti-doping rules, on the basis of a new testimony from M. FLACCUS, obtained on September 30 under specific conditions , the sincerity of which one can reasonably doubt after a succession of reversals and about-faces all summer long, I wonder about the nature of this new offence. Seeking to influence a difficult and complicated decision to make, since it has been over a year since I was tested positive and the case is in the hands of civil justice."

She further added:

"Wanting to 'apply' a localization defect to me in relation to my training plans that I spontaneously provided to the courts and to the AFLD shows the perplexity of the judgment in this case. So either I'm the intriguing person described capable of manipulating my surroundings, the media and the law, and in this case, it would have been very easy for me to provide perfect plans, or as I have been trying to say for months, I was under intense psychological pressure and in the worst possible condition to finish my preparatory training and we rushed back to my region so that I could find some calm and serenity before my departure for the world championships."

Ophelie Claude-Boxberger's major achievements

Ophelie Claude-Boxberger is a five-time national champion in the 1,500m and 3,000m steeplechase and is the fourth-fastest French steeplechaser in history, with a personal best of 9:35.56.

She represented France at several European Championships and the 2019 World Championships, where she was eliminated in the heats of the 3,000m steeplechase.