By Michael Gleeson
New world champion Torrie Lewis is on a collision course to face the drug cheat who initially denied her gold after seven months of her two-year doping ban was suspended, leaving her free to race at this year’s Commonwealth Games.
The Australian sprint star will retrospectively be awarded the gold medal for the 200 metres from the 2024 under-20 championships held in Lima, Peru, after it was revealed this week that race winner Adaejah Hodge, from the British Virgin Islands, had tested positive and had been suspended.
Torrie Lewis in Lima at the world under-20 championships in 2024 after winning silver. She has now been elevated to the gold medal. Credit: Australian Athletics
The Athletics Integrity Unit found Hodge guilty but cut the normal four-year ban to two years and suspended seven months of it after agreeing she had unintentionally and unknowingly ingested the drug GW501516, a banned metabolic modulator. Her backdated suspension ended on January 27.
Last year Hodge’s coach, Gerald Phiri, was provisionally suspended after three of his athletes tested positive for the same drug.
The discount leaves Hodge, who also participated in the Paris Olympics in 2024, free to compete at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow this year and go head-to-head with Lewis again.
“She is already back running again. They gave her two years, then gave her a seven-month discount for complying with the drug testers,” Lewis said.
“It means she can compete at the Commonwealth Games if they pick her, and she is running again and running fast so I assume they will pick her, so I will have to run against her again there.”
Lewis wondered at the length of the ban and the size of the discount given Hodge had tested positive, was part of a coaching group that had multiple drug suspensions and the potential for residual impact of the drug on the body.
“Anyone who has a drug charge against them will always have a taint to their name and some suspicion that come with that. They did get the [physical performance] benefits while using drugs,” Lewis said.
Lewis said she only stumbled on the fact she was to be made the under-20 world champion by chance this week.
Adaejah Hodge competing at the Paris Olympics in 2024.Credit: Getty Images
“I literally got the news on Instagram she had been banned and this was happening, it was so weird. No one has formally told me anything,” Lewis said.
“We knew she hadn’t been competing last season and there was speculation of injuries or possibly drugs because her coach had had a drug suspension and some of the other teammates had publicly been suspended.”
While thrilled to be made the world junior champion, Lewis is nonetheless disappointed that she was denied her moment in 2024.
“It’s mixed feelings. Yes, technically I won but someone else crossed the line ahead of me. All my memories of that day are of crossing the line with someone ahead of me,” she said.
“I didn’t get stand at the top of the podium and hear the national anthem being played. All the photos I have are of me standing on the podium with someone else [wearing gold] and with a silver medal around my neck.
“But now I also know I was the fastest clean athlete that day and am the world junior champion so it’s mixed feelings.”
Lewis said she had no inclination on the day Hodge was on drugs. “We spoke while waiting to get medals, and we had a pretty nice conversation and at no point in my head did I think she was a cheater,” she said.
Likewise, she felt for her teammate Jess Milat, who originally missed the medals in fourth place, but has now been elevated to bronze. Milat didn’t get to stand on the podium that day and signed a new sponsorship deal soon after that, a deal that would be expected to be significantly better had she been on the podium in Lima rather than retrospectively elevated.
“4th in the World! So grateful to everyone that got me here 🫶✨🌏,” Milat posted on Instagram at the time.
Lima was the same world under-20 championships where Australian Gout Gout won silver in the men’s 200m behind a runner 18 months older than him.
Gout has one final chance to win a world juniors gold later this year, after opting to compete in Eugene, Oregon, rather than at the Glasgow Games.
If he can win, he will join Lewis as a 200m under-20 world champion.
News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport are sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.
Most Viewed in Sport
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
