ATHLETICS: Okeke facing life ban for drugs

Aham Okeke, a Norwegian sprinter based in Texas, faces a life ban after failing a second doping test within the space of five months. Okeke, who missed last summer's European Championships because of a three-month ban for taking the stimulant pseu doephedrine, tested positive for testosterone on 5 December.

Vicente Modahl has acted as Okeke's agent on an informal basis through their mutual connection with the Gulbul athletics club in Modahl's home city, Oslo. "Okeke is not one of my contracted athletes and he never has been," said Modahl, who is still awaiting the date of his wife Diane's appeal against a four-year ban confirmed by the British Athletic Federation.

"I never thought I would be able to do something specifically with him because he is not such a good athlete," Modahl commented last night. "I knew him as a 16-year-old when he was at the club, but he is a person that I know very little about. The only link is that I have entered him for several competitions at the request of the club. I am still a club member and I help them when they need it."

Okeke, who is studying at Blinn college in Texas, was random-tested by an official from the International Amateur Athletic Federation. Vidar Keyl, general secretary of the Norwegian Athletic Federation, said Okeke's sample showed traces of testosterone, although the Montreal laboratory which processed the sample has yet to confirm it.

The Norwegian sprinter, who was born 24 years ago in Nigeria, and was third fastest in the world last year over 200 metres, has improved his times dramatically in the last year.

His 100m time improved from 10.33sec to 10.16, and his 200m time from 20.97 to 20.49. His timing of 10.16 came at the meeting in Tonsberg from which he provided the positive sample which earned him a three-month ban, although the Norwegian Sports court subsequently cleared him. They accepted his explanation that he had been taken the stimulant unwittingly after a doctor had prescribed him medicine for an allergy. Okeke denies the latest charge.