Lydia Jele To Remain Suspended Until Ruling Is Made

Lydia Jele To Remain Suspended Until Ruling Is Made

Botswana National Olympic Committee (BNOC) has confirmed that Lydia Jele  will remain suspended from athletes until a ruling is made after she tested positive to a banned substance.

BNOC chief executive officer (CEO), Tuelo Serufho told a media briefing that there is a doping case involving a local athlete. “A sample of hers that was taken was found to have contained a banned substance.

The athlete was given the opportunity to state whether or not she wanted to exercise her right to have a B sample tested. She decided to waive the testing of sample B.

She is currently waiting to hear (of) her fate from (the) World Anti-Doping body,” he said.

Serufho said as BNOC, they are awaiting the outcome of the investigations.

“We are worried at the rate at which our athletes are returning adverse analytical findings. Nobody can be happy when their athletes test positive,” a disappointed Serufho said.He said the other worrying factor is that athletes who test positive are the ones who have received anti-doping education.

Serufho said they are advocating for the establishment of an independent National Anti-Doping Organisation (NADO).“In this pending case, we had tested the athlete.

Our results were negative, but the other tests came positive.  The question is what happened between the time we tested and they tested.  We use the same equipment.  The final ruling is not out maybe the results may came out to say she is not guilty,” he said.
Meanwhile, Jele has been named as one of the recipients of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) scholarship.

Serufho said if she is not found guilty, she would access her scholarship.

But if she is guilty, she would forfeit the scholarship.

“IOC does not sponsor athletes with current or previous doping cases,” he said.

Other IOC solidarity scholarship recipients are Baboloki Thebe, Karabo Sibanda, Isaac Makwala, Onkabetse Nkobolo, Christine Botlogetswe, Nigel Amos, Naomi Ruele (swimming) and Matshidiso Ebudilwe (cycling).