World championships: 200m winner Schippers insists she is ‘clean’

Dutchwoman rejects suggestions of doping after breaking European record

BEIJING: Dutchwoman Dafne Schippers rejected any suggestion of doping after she smashed a 36-year-old European record to win the world 200m title with the fourth fastest run in history on Friday.

Schippers, who claimed 100m silver on Monday and only switched to sprinting from heptathlon after the 2013 world championships, clocked 21.63sec as she lunged at the line to deny Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson.

It was a remarkable run by Schippers, 23, who eclipsed the European record of 21.71sec set by Marita Koch in 1979 and matched by fellow East German Heike Drechsler in 1986.

Only Americans Marion Jones and world record-holder Florence Griffith-Joyner have run the 200m faster than Schippers, who won hepathlon bronze at the Moscow worlds two years ago.

The careers of Koch, Dreschler, Jones and Griffith-Joyner were all mired in doping allegations, but Schippers insisted she had nothing to hide.

“I know I’m clean and I work very hard for it,” said Schippers. “I do all the dope controls and I don’t want to say more than that.”

The Dutchwoman added, “I’m very happy with my time and the European record. I hoped coming here for the gold medal and a time under 22 seconds. I did it but I can’t believe it. I didn’t think the clock was working right when I came through the line. What a race, what a championships for me.”

Doping has been in the spotlight after lurid allegations in the build-up to Beijing. Two Kenyan athletes have been provisionally suspended after failing pre-competition tests.

Schippers immediately saw a track doctor after the race, but her coach Bart Bennema said it was purely precautionary after she complained of dizziness. 

Published in The Express Tribune, August 29^th,  2015.

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