The Israel Athletics Association announces that the 22-year-old Olga Lenskiy will face a disciplinary court after failing to show up for a drug test.
By ALLON SINAIOlga Lenskiy(photo credit: TIBOR YIGAR)
It took 42 years for Esther Roth-Shachamarov’s 100-meter national record to be broken by Olga Lenskiy. However, after just three days its validity has been cast in doubt.The Israel Athletics Association announced on Tuesday that the 22-year-old Lenskiy will face a disciplinary court after failing to show up for a drug test on Sunday, the day after she broke the record. Lenskiy clocked a time of 11.42 seconds at Hadar Yosef in Tel Aviv in a local athletics event on Saturday, bettering Roth-Shachamarov’s record from the 1972 Munich Olympics by three hundredths of a second.Due to the relatively unimportant nature of Saturday’s competition, there was no drug testing team at Hadar Yosef. It is believed that Lenskiy was requested to take a drug test on Sunday morning, but after initially agreeing to do so, she notified the testers that she would not be able to attend it as she needed to fly to Ukraine to be with her ailing grandmother.“Olga’s trip to Ukraine is completely against the regulations,” said IAA chairman Doron Kofman. “She will have to explain herself on her return to Israel.”Lenskiy has denied any wrongdoing.“Everything that is being written about me is based on rumors and lies,” she said. “I haven’t used any banned substances and I’m ready to take the test as soon as I return to Israel. I was told on Saturday afternoon that I would need to take a test at 6:30 p.m. at Hadar Yosef and I was already on my way there when they called me to cancel the test.“Later on in the evening I was told that my grandmother was being admitted to hospital in a critical condition so I was forced to leave the country urgently. Right now my grandmother’s health is more important to me than anything else.”
