By Lee Hyo-sik
The police said Friday that they are looking into the possible use of banned performance-enhancing drugs by marathon runners.
A narcotics investigation division at the Gangwon Provincial Police Agency said it is investigating Jeong Man-hwa, 51-year-old national marathon team coach, over allegations that he injected performance-enhancing drugs, undetectable in doping tests, into runners he supervised.
Jeong also heads a marathon team at a university in the province. The coach has been suspected of administrating a substance that raises the level of hemoglobin to marathon runners to boost their athletic performance.
Police officers are analyzing medical records confiscated from a rehabilitation facility in Jecheon, North Chungcheong, where runners supervised by Jeong were often treated.
``We are conducting the probe in an extremely cautious manner because it involves a famous marathon coach and many long-distance runners. As soon as we complete examining the runners’ medical records, we will release the results of the investigation,’’ a police officer said.
About 20 marathoner runners are under investigation, including Ji Young-jun and other current members of the national team, the officer said. Ji won the gold medal in the men’s marathon at the Guangzhou Asian Games last year.
Investigators said they recently summoned four suspected athletes for questioning, but failed to secure testimony that they used illegal drugs.
They plan to request the Korea Anti-Doping Agency submit its test results on the suspected runners.
``We will also ask the Korea Association of Athletics Federations to hand in documents concerning coach Jeong and the marathon runners,’’ the officer said.
However, Jeong and the athletes, as well as the Korea Association of Athletics Federations, are strongly denying such allegations.
The federation said it is waiting for the results of the police investigation, stressing that its internal probe has not found any irregularities.
It also expressed concern over the probe’s negative fallout, regardless of the outcome, on the upcoming 2011 World Athletics Championships in Daegu.