A Great Britain and Wales marathon runner, who shocked the elite to win a place at the World Championships, was banned after returning a positive drugs test.
Josh Griffiths, 33, was given a three-month ban by the World Athletics’ Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) after Benzoylecgonine – which is found in the body when it processes cocaine – appeared in his system following May’s Belfast City Marathon.
Griffiths, who represented Great Britain at the 2017 and 2022 Worlds and ran for Wales at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, denied ever taking cocaine or any other social drug.
He could not prove how cocaine entered his system, but in their ruling the AIU accepted that any ingestion was both out of competition and “unrelated to sport” as they imposed the ban.
Griffiths’ ban ran for three months from the hearing date of 19 June 2026. In addition his race results from the day of the Belfast Marathon – 3 May – until the end of the ban were expunged.
Following the findings, Griffiths accepted the anti-doping rule violation and the sanction.
The Carmarthenshire athlete rose to prominence when he finished as the fastest Briton as a club runner in the 2017 London Marathon, earning him a place in the GB squad for that year’s World Championships.
He went on to record an eighth-place finish in London in 2021, having turned professional after the 2017 success.
The AIU said in its report that Griffiths remarked it was “absolutely impossible” when he was told of the initial adverse finding in his sample and that “there must have been a mistake”.
Benzoylecgonine, which is found in the body when it processes cocaine, appeared in both samples of his urine provided following the Belfast marathon.
Griffiths provided details of his activities and whereabouts leading up to the 3 May race, as well as his stay at the official race hotel, stressing he did not attend any social events, consume any alcohol and that contact had been mainly with other athletes and race staff.
At a later hearing, he reiterated that he had never knowingly ingested cocaine and was not aware of anyone close to him using the drug in the lead-up to the Belfast race.
Griffiths submitted scientific data to support his claim that any ingestion was out of competition, something the AIU went on to agree with.