Aziz Zakari

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Aziz Zakari (born September 2, 1976 in Accra, Ghana) is a Ghanaian athlete specializing in the 100 metres.

Participating in the 2004 Summer Olympics, he achieved second place in his 100 metres heat, thus making it through to the second round. Heading into the second round, he was victorious in a tough sprint, before achieving qualification from his semi-final. This good form was not able to continue, as he failed to finish in the final, staged on August 22, renowned as possibly the fastest collective 100 metre race in history, where six of the seven finishing athletes completed the race in ten seconds or less.

He finally, for the first time, achieved a sub-10 second run on June 14, 2005 in Athens when he ran 9.99 seconds in Asafa Powell's world record breaking race. The Ghanaian record currently belongs to Leonard Myles-Mills with 9.98 seconds.^[1]

In July 2006, Zakari was reported to have failed a drugs test for the banned substance stanozolol. The test was conducted In-Competition on 29 April 2006 at the IAAF Grand Prix Meeting in Dakar.^[2] On 25 September 2006 the IAAF suspended him for two years, meaning he could participate at the 2008 Summer Olympics.