IAAF says doping allegations are sensationalist and confusing

A lengthy response by the IAAF to the claims by a German broadcaster and The Sunday Times said the allegations were “sensationalist and confusing”.

Kenya boasts some of the world’s best middle- and long-distance runners but dozens of its athletes have failed drug tests over the past few years, casting a shadow over the success of Kenyan athletics.

ARD officials could not reached for an immediate response.

The allegations were made by German television channel ARD and British newspaper The Sunday Times, who obtained a database of 12,000 tests taken on 5,000 athletes.

The ARD and Sunday Times reports were based on analysis of the leaked test results by Australian anti-doping scientists Robin Parisotto and Michael Ashenden.

It said one third of endurance athletics medals at Olympics and world championships between 2001 and 2012, were won by competitors with suspicious results.

“The Russian athletes who appear… they do not even want to watch these films, they do not take them seriously”.

“The published allegations were sensationalist and confusing: the results referred to were not positive tests. In fact, ARD and The Sunday Times both admit their evaluation of the data did not prove doping”.

“It is important to be very clear that a large proportion of these blood samples were collected in a period before the implementation of the ABP and can not therefore be used as proof of doping”, said the IAAF.

In its detailed response, the IAAF rejected the claim that the results were secret, saying they had been published by WADA four years ago.

The IAAF also issued a quote from Professor Giuseppe d’Onofrio, who it said is one of the world’s leading haematologists working as an expert in the field of the athlete biological passport. This, for me, is a fairly seminal moment.

“There is no space for shortcuts, simplistic approaches or sensationalism when athletes” careers and reputations are at stake” he added.

“Any reporting or insinuation of such is wholly irresponsible on behalf of these media outlets and we refute outright any allegation that the IAAF did not appropriately follow up suspicious profiles”, the governing body says.

Kenya has called the claims “libellous” while Russian athletics chief Vadim Zelichenok said they were based on “biased material, which isn’t based on facts”.

The president of the worldwide Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, said the IOC would act with “zero tolerance” if there was any truth to the reports but stressed “at this time we’ve nothing more than allegations and we have to respect the presumption of innocence”.

Coe said the IAAF has been at the forefront of blood screening and out-of-competition testing for years.

The data indicated suspected widespread blood doping in athletics between 2001 and 2012 and has prompted the head of world athletics to dismiss as “laughable” any suggestion that his organisation had been negligent in drug testing of athletes. Of those, 39 athletes have already received a sanction, 24 are under proceedings and new proceedings will be initiated shortly.

“We would be happy for our targeted testing programme to be compared to that of any other worldwide Sporting Federation”, the IAAF said.