ADDIS ABABA, (Reuters) – Ethiopia has indefinitely banned 35 athletes – including Olympic men’s 5,000 and 10,000 metres champion Kenenisa Bekele – from competition in a row over training, the technical director of the Ethiopian Athletics Federation said yesterday.
The body, angry over flagging results in the past few years, summoned 200 athletes to a training camp two months ago ahead of the World Indoor Championships in March and the London Olympics in July and August.
But Bekele and other athletes including Olympic women’s 5,000 and 10,000 gold medallist Tirunesh Dibaba ignored the call-up, technical director Dube Jilo said.
“We have banned 35 athletes, including Kenenisa and Tirunesh, from competing in any event,” he told Reuters.
“It has been two months now since we summoned every athlete in contention, but this group has so far failed to respond.”
He said the ban would be reconsidered as soon as the athletes reported for training.
Bekele, who has yet to decide if he will compete in London anyway, told Reuters he had been injured.
