End of Career
In September 2001, Sotomayor announced that he would end his career, following yet another positive drug test during a training camp in June, this time for the anabolic steroid nandrolone. He avoided a lifetime ban that would normally follow a second positive test. This second test disqualified his fourth-place finish in his last World Championship. Once again, Sotomayor claimed he was innocent and that mistakes had been made during the handling of his doping test.
These allegations never gained strong support in his home country Cuba, although former IAAF Vice President and Doping Commission Chairman Arne Ljungqvist asserted these were both "crystal clear cases" in a Swedish interview.
In a February 2004 interview for Cuban news, Sotomayor said that injury had forced his retirement, not the doping scandal. An Achilles tendon problem hampered his performance, he said, and reduced his run-up from nine steps to seven and then just five.
Read more about this topic: Javier Sotomayor
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