Moroccan Runner Flees Doping Test After Winning Spanish Half-Marathon

"I just ran the Las Galletas (Tenerife) half-marathon where I finished third. At the end, they called the winner, Redouan Nouini, and me for an anti-doping control. The 1st one fled the control, and did not recover his prize...", denounced on his Twitter account, the athlete from Jaca (Huesca), Alberto Puyuelo. Puyuelo finished third with a time of 1:08:03, behind Latvian Dimitrijs Serjogins (1:06:58), second.

The European vice-champion over 50 km, individually and in teams, deplores that this sport is "full of cheaters" and demands the "disqualification and sanction" of the Moroccan athlete who won the half-marathon with a time of 1:05:40 "on a tough circuit with 23-25°C". "When I was taking the test, they came to tell me that he had fled. I’m hallucinating. He is considered to have tested positive, according to the organizers, and is exposed to a serious sanction," Puyuelo said in an interview with Heraldo.

The Arona City Council confirms that Nouini, 34, left the podium while he was supposed to undergo an anti-doping control requested by members of the Spanish Commission for the Fight against Doping in Sport (CELAD). The winner of the Las Galletas de Arona half-marathon, a flagship event in Canarian athletics that was in its twenty-sixth edition on Sunday, receives a prize of 750 euros.

For now, Nouini continues to be considered the winner of the race, pending clarification of this case. But everything indicates that he will be disqualified in favor of Latvian Dimitrijs Serjogins. The Moroccan athlete won the Santander half-marathon last year with a time of 1:09:06) and was proclaimed the winner, just two weeks ago, of the Coslada half-marathon with a time of 1:05:37.