London 2012 Olympic champion Lashinda Demus believes drug testing should be extended to high school level, following the recent exceptional times by teen athletes.
Legendary American hurdler Lashinda Demus has called for increased testing on high school athletes who are exceeding performance threshold for their age by achieving professional-level times.
In a video released on her Instagram page, the 2011 world champion in the women’s 400mH event spoke unsparingly on the increased performances from high school athletes this season and the need to start testing them earlier.
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Lashinda Demus is regarded as one of the greatest 400m hurdlers in history
“Majority of people believe that high school athletes should be drug tested…This is me watching all the great performances and I just recall not seeing so many fast times, and I’m talking about people that could step into the professional realm and be able to compete like I’ve never seen this many people do that in high school,” said Demus.
“So I’m like if we have all these kids that are pretty much capable of running professional and have these professional marks, we probably need to start testing earlier because they potentially could be people that can make the national teams,” she added.
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The five-time world championship medallists then touched on the bitter-sweet moment of finally receiving her London 2012 Olympic gold medal 12 years after it was confirmed that initial winner Natalya Antyukh had tested positive for banned substances following a re-test of doping samples.
Demus’ upgrade made her the first woman from the United States to win the Olympic 400m hurdles title. In a first-ever medal reallocation ceremony held during the Olympic Games last summer, the 42-year-old received her gold medal at Paris’s Champions Park.
“So it seems like the right way to go about it because I would hate any athlete to go through what I just went being that I received the gold medal 12 years after competing at the Olympic Games.
“Because the fact of the matter is, it’s way more on the line for high school athletes. Like you have kids coming out with the NIL money and it’s harder to get these high school kids into D1 schools, and I think one of the things I would like to see is at these big invitationals that high school kids run in, we need to incorporate some drug testing.”
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Lashinda Demus finally receiving her Olympic gold in Paris 12 years after she was cheated out of it
She reiterated the necessity and why it’s time for action before it’s too late.
“I think that it’s necessary, it’s very necessary now. This is the most I’ve seen out-of-this-world talents in high school in my whole life. You might have seen talents like this once every 10-15 years, this is every single year…I think now is the time to put this into action because we have more and more high school athletes that are becoming professionally faster,” she concluded.
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Speaking on the possible solutions, Demus revealed thresholds that should be given for this testing.
“How about once an athlete breaks a certain threshold in time or whatever it is for any given sport, they are now on the list to get tested. So if we have a high school 100m runner that runs under 10.3s, maybe that should be somebody that goes in the pool.
“If we have a high school 400m runner that runs under 45.5s or 45 low maybe, they might be in the pool. Something like that, I think that’s a good idea,” she concluded.
Demus was one of the most dominant performers during her era, competing in both the 400m and 400mH with respective personal best times of 51.09s and 52.47s.
