Athletics Sara and Sofia Benfares
Now the sister too? German doping case expands
As of: 12:12 p.m. | Reading time: 3 minutes
The German athletics hope Sofia Benfares, third in the U20 European Championships
Quelle: picture alliance/BEAUTIFUL SPORTS/KJPeters
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Almost six months before the start of the Olympic Games in Paris, a new suspected case of doping in German athletics has become public. According to Sara Benfares, her sister Sofia was also found to have a banned substance.
The latest suspected doping case in the camp of German athletes is expanding. Three weeks after it was announced that 22-year-old middle and long-distance runner Sara Benfares tested positive for banned substances, her younger sister Sofia is now also under suspicion.
While the blood doping agent Epo and testosterone were found in Sara Benfares’ A sample, Sofia has now also tested positive for Epo. The National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) confirmed a corresponding report in the “Saarbrücker Zeitung” on Thursday. It said that 19-year-old Sofia Benfares was found to have the banned blood doping drug Epo during a training check in 2023. A complaint was made to the Saarbrücken public prosecutor’s office because of a possible violation of the anti-doping law. NADA also confirmed this.
Sara Benfares’ provisional suspension became known at the end of January. In this case too, NADA filed a complaint.
Sara Benfares has been suspended
Source: dpa/Angelika Warmuth
Both sisters are considered great young hopes in the German athletics camp. Sara Benfares was twelfth over 5000 meters at the European Athletics Championships in Munich in 2022. In the same year she became German champion over ten kilometers on the road. She had set the Olympics in Paris as a goal this summer and talked about wanting to win a medal.
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Sofia won bronze at the U20 European Championships. Both start for LC Rehlingen. However, the Benfares team lives and trains near Fontainebleau, south of Paris. According to the report, LC Rehlingen has already suspended Sofia Benfares due to suspected doping.
Is the treatment of bone cancer the cause?
At least her case raises questions for now. Shortly after the suspicion was published, it became known that her positive test results could possibly have medical reasons. The French Internet portal SPE15 published a report that the runner had bone cancer.
Sara’s father, who is also the trainer of the two sisters, describes in the conversation that the family received the diagnosis last August and that he pointed out to the treating doctor that his daughter, as a competitive athlete, had a medical exemption for treatment with Epo and need testosterone.
According to a report by Deutschlandfunk, shortly before the doping reports, she published pictures on Instagram “of her hobbling through a hallway on crutches, with a bandaged knee, in a Spanish hospital. ‘This has been my daily life for more than a year,’ she writes. And: ‘I’m tired of constantly having to justify my treatments to the authorities.’ Shortly beforehand, pictures show her during tough speed sessions and competitions.”
The German Athletics Association is informed about both cases, but does not want to make any further comment and referred to NADA on Thursday. The DLV emphasized that it is a consistent advocate of the anti-doping fight. “It has once again been shown that the control system works in the fight against doping. In 2015, at the request of the DLV, the anti-doping law was introduced, which makes criminal charges possible in the event of a violation of the anti-doping rules,” the association wrote.