Sprinter Kelly-Ann Baptiste has failed a drug test and withdrawn from the IAAF World Championships in Moscow. She was one of two female athletes from T&T forced to withdraw from all events yesterday. Manager of the team Dexter Voisin told the Sunday Guardian that circumstances led to the withdrawal of Baptiste and Semoy Hackett. There were also reports that another T&T sprinter, Aaron Armstrong, missed two mandatory drugs tests.
Baptiste was due to run in the first round of the 100m heats yesterday morning. However, according to reports from Moscow, she tested positive for a banned substance and left the games. The banned substance involved was not identified. She was entered in the 100m, 200m and was part of T&T’s 4x100m relay team.
A cautious Voisin said: “During the course of this week, the Trinidad and Tobago officials were informed by the authorities that the suspension which had been lifted on Semoy Hackett had been reinstated and, therefore, she would not be eligible to run at these games. It has just happened and we will probably find out more later. “As for Kelly-Ann Baptiste, all I can say is that she has voluntarily decided not to compete and to withdraw and the NAAA will be issuing a comment on that in a short while.”
Pressed on the reason, Voisin stated, “At this time, I cannot say anymore than that...the NAAA will issue a release shortly.” He said: “Trinidad and Tobago will still have a 4x100-metres relay team without Hackett and Baptiste, as there were six ladies brought to these games, and the mood of the camp is still positive as we seek to make Trinidad and Tobago proud.”
Baptiste, 26, was seen as a real contender at the World Championships. She is the third-fastest woman this year over 100m. Baptiste, the 2011 world championship 100m bronze medallist, joins Tyson Gay, Asafa Powell, Veronica Campbell-Brown and Sherone Simpson as high-profile athletes who have tested positive for banned substances.
In 2003, Baptiste was the first T&T female sprinter to win a medal in a global track meet when she ran 11.58 seconds to take bronze in the 100m at the 3rd IAAF World Youth Championships in Sherbrooke, Canada.
Less than a year later, she took 200m gold and 100m silver at the XVI Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Junior Track & Field Championships, in Veracruz, Mexico. She followed that up with fourth place in the 200m final at the 10th IAAF World Junior Championships, in Grosseto, running 23.46 and missing out on bronze by one-thousandth of a second.
She made her Olympic debut in Athens, running the lead-off leg in the 4x100m relay, but was unable to complete the baton exchange with Fana Ashby, and T&T exited the event in the first round. In 2005, Baptiste ran 11.39 and 23.35 to win the 100m and 200m races at the Carifta Games on her home island of Tobago.
She is ranked No.3 in the world in the 100 this year with a time of 10.83 seconds, trailing two-time Olympic champion Jamaican Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (10.77) and Nigerian Blessing Okagbare (10.79). She was considered a medal threat in the 100. She is ranked No 7 in the world this year in the 200.
Baptiste’s absence makes Fraser-Pryce and Okagbare even greater gold-and silver-medal favourites in tomorrow’s final. It also increases the chances of Americans Carmelita Jeter, the defending world champion coming off injury, English Gardner, Octavious Freeman and Alexandria Anderson. In an interview in the run up to the Moscow games, Baptiste said the only pressure she faced was from herself. “The pressure for me is to try to get better since my bronze medal in 2011.”
She said inconsistency led to her leaving London without a medal last year, but was quick to point out “my PRs (personal best times) in both 100m and 200m, which I hadn’t PR’d in years.”