Coe backs chiefs over doping row
IAAF presidential candidate Lord Coe expects athletics’ world governing body to offer a “robust and detailed response” to fresh allegations of widespread doping in the sport.
Leaked data indicates that as many as a third of medallists at Olympic Games and World Championships between 2001 and 2012 returned suspicious blood test results. The IAAF criticised the leak and warned it may take action, while London 2012 architect Coe, who is currently an IAAF vice-president since 2007 and is bidding to be elected president this month, backed chiefs to react.
He said: “I know that the IAAF takes these allegations extremely seriously and it will issue a robust and detailed response to them and continue to work closely, as it has always done, with WADA [World Anti-Doping Agency].”
The IAAF said it was preparing a response to the claims, which appeared in the Sunday Times newspaper and on German television and, it added, were based on “confidential medical data obtained without consent”.
Renewed scrutiny of doping in athletics comes just weeks before the World Championships in Beijing, which start on 22 August.
It also follows controversy surrounding British double Olympic champion Mo Farah, who moved to reiterate his commitment to clean sport after claims made against his American coach Alberto Salazar and training partner Galen Rupp, both of whom strong deny wrongdoing.