Usain Bolt poses following his win in the men’s 100m during the IAAF Diamond League meeting at the Olympic Stadium in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, Britain on 26 July 2013. RIGHT: Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica waves to the fans after winning the 200m race at the Doha Diamond League meet in this 2013 file photo.
KINGSTON: Olympic champions Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce headline a Jamaican world athletics championships squad that will come under intense scrutiny in Moscow following several positive doping tests by some of the country’s athletes.
Five athletes, including Olympic gold medallists Asafa Powell and Sherone Simpson, tested positive for banned substances at the Caribbean island’s national championships in June and face disciplinary hearings.
All five have denied knowingly taking banned substances.
Neither Powell nor Simpson, both of whom tested positive for the stimulant oxilophrine, were included in the squad named by the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) yesterday for the August 10-18 championships in the Russian capital.
Nine-times world championship medallist Veronica Campbell-Brown, who held a wild card entry to Moscow by virtue of winning the 200 meters in Daegu, South Korea in 2011, also missed out.
Campbell-Brown is provisionally suspended after failing a test for using a banned diuretic at the Jamaica International Invitational World Challenge meet in May.
Powell had finished seventh in the 100m at the national championships but had been expected to be included in the 4x100 relay team having run 9.88 seconds at the Lausanne Diamond League meeting on July 4.
Jamaican officials did not indicate what event the athletes were likely to run in Moscow but Nesta Carter is expected to join Bolt, Nickel Ashmeade and Kemar Bailey-Cole in the 100m in the absence of injured world champion Yohan Blake.
The 22-member male squad also includes Olympic 200m bronze medallist Warren Weir.
Former Commonwealth Games champion Sherri-Ann Brooks, who was fourth at the Jamaican trials in June, is expected to take the place of Simpson in the women’s 100m.
Wild card holder and 2009 world champion Fraser-Pryce, Kerron Stewart and Schillonie Calvert will be the other entrants in the blue riband event.
London Olympics bronze medallist Hansle Parchment, who injured his ankle at the Jamaica trials, takes his place in the 110 hurdles along with Andrew Riley and Dwight Thomas.
Meanwhile, former Olympic, World and Commonwealth 400m champion Christine Ohuruogu was named captain of Britain’s squad for the World Championships in Moscow.
The 29-year-old, whose younger sister Vicky, was named in the women’s 4x400m relay squad, will lead the team for the competition on the back of good current form that last weekend saw her win the Diamond League race in London.
Ohuruogu was Commonwealth champion over the distance in Melbourne in 2006, won the world title in Osaka in 2007 and took Olympic gold in Beijing in 2008 but had to be content with silver in the British capital last year.
As expected, reigning Olympic 5,000m and 10,000m champion Mo Farah will attempt the same double in Moscow.
Olympic long jump champion Greg Rutherford was named in the squad, despite the athlete struggling with a hamstring injury.
Olympic heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis-Hill, who competed in London last weekend, was also an inclusion, although she is still a doubt to compete because of a nagging Achilles tendon problem. AFP
