China athletics is drug free, says sprint star Su Bingtian’s coach Randy Huntington after doping doubts are raised
Questions are asked after Su and Xie Zhenye break national record with personal bests in the space of a week, but well-known coach says country is clean
Chinese sportspeople have been subject to doping accusations for decades, but American coach Randy Huntington is adamant there is not a drug issue at the top level of athletics on the mainland.
Huntington, a well-known track and field coach who has been in China for four-and-a-half years, is the head coach of the country’s horizontal jumps team and also coaches star sprinter Su Bingtian.
He coached long jump world record holder Mike Powell and fellow American Willie Banks – a one-time triple jump world record holder – and also spent time in South Korea before moving to China.
“The beauty of it, for me at least, is that at the national team level I don’t have to worry about the drug issue at all, anywhere,” Huntington said.
“We don’t have a problem like that here. It is probably more of a problem in other parts of the world than we have at the national team level in China, which I’m pretty darn happy about to be honest.
