28 athletes from 2005 and 2007 World Championships ‘have adverse doping — IAAF

“Cutting edge” technology has enabled the worldwide Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) to identify adverse findings from 28 athletes after the re-testing of stored urine samples from the 2005 and 2007 World Championships in Helsinki and Osaka respectively.

Speaking exclusively to The Commentator, Luke J. Harris, Sports Historian from Canterbury Christ Church University said, “It should be seen as a positive that the IAAF has now acted and appears to have responded to the allegations made in the British press”.

The IAAF’s retesting strategy, which began in 2005, the year of the Helsinki World Championships, has involved long-term storage of samples at the Swiss Laboratory for Doping Analyses (LAD), the WADA-accredited laboratory in Lausanne.

The 2005 and 2007 samples were retested with improved scientific methods that can find previously undetectable substances.

According to the report, more than one-third of athletes who won endurance events at Olympic Games and world championships between 2001 and 2012 had submitted suspicious tests.

“This successful re-analysis, which commenced well before the recent criticisms of the IAAF anti-doping programme, confirms once again the extent to which the IAAF is willing to go in order to target and discover those who wish to cheat in our sport”.

The IAAF, which has been criticised after leaked blood test data was obtained by the Sunday Times and German broadcaster ARD/WDR, added that none of the athletes concerned would be competing at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, which get under way on 22 August.

The IAAF’s statement said that “only very few remain active in sport”, that most of the athletes have now retired, and that several had already been sanctioned. This reanalysis has confirmed a further 28 athletes with 32 adverse findings.

“But we will do everything in our power, and use every tool available to protect those clean athletes who form the large majority of our sport”. The IAAF announced in April that such retests would begin. “The IAAF is committed to use every means at its disposal within the World Anti-Doping Code to root out the cheats, however long it takes”.