2017 World Championships silver medalist Junya Koga of Japan is facing a possible 4-year ban for having tested positively for a prohibited substance earlier this year.
As we reported back in May on the eve of the 2018 Japan Open, the 31-year-old backstroke ace reportedly failed two drug tests in the month of March, which resulted in his being removed from the Japanese National Team. Koga tested positive for traces of ‘banned muscle-building substances’, which the Olympian denied having taken knowingly.
Sources told Kyodo News yesterday, September 17th, that Koga is set to be issued a 4-year by FINA for the violation, a punishment which would render the former Club Wolverine Elite athlete out of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, a home-based Games. Koga sought a reduction in his sanction at a hearing before an impartial panel in late August, reports Kyodo, however, his request was rejected. He still could appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
In addition to his 2017 World Championships medal, Koga earned 50m backstroke gold at the 2016 Short Course World Championships in Windsor. He was a 2016 Olympian as a member of Japan’s 4 x 100m freestyle relay.
Japanese athletes test positive. Japan Swimming removes athlete from competition. Good job Japan. Come on Brazil, South Korea, China, and Russia. Doping is not a victimless crime. How many innocent athletes with decades of sacrifice have been denied Olympic or World Championship medals because of cheaters.
What was done to those swimmers was awful.
Susie O’Neill too. Chinese got her good in her early days.
It’s not just the US that suffered because of the GDR. Canada didn’t win any gold medals in any sport in Montreal 1976. Had it not been for East Germany, Nancy Garapick and Cheryl Gibson would have been household names all over Canada. Garapick would have taken golds in both backstrokes, and Gibson would have led a 1-2 Canadian sweep of the 400 IM.
And, in more recent history, the super talented Canadian, Marianne Limpert, was denied gold in 1996 (200 IM) by dope-cheater Michelle Smith. Shame!
I didn’t know that “coupling forces” were a banned substance.
That’s a good joke. A sleeper, to be sure, but a good joke.
Thanks, I was pretty proud of myself as I typed it out.
That’s an all-time under appreciated joke
Was he training under Salo at the time?
No he was at wolverine club the past few years
He left CW a few months before Rio
Dude has been all over the US to train.
Wasn’t it Ligandrol (a SARM). Sorry, but if you get caught with SARMs in your system, you were taking it knowingly. SARMs don’t make their way into water or protein powders, unless you are deliberately being drugged by someone
And trimetazidine doesn’t make it’s way into Cooper Complete Elite Athletic multivitamins.