WADA ‘alarmed’ over new crisis
Print Edition
The World Anti-Doping Agency said yesterday it was “very alarmed” by new accusations of mass doping that have plunged athletics into a deep crisis.
WADA president Craig Reedie said the new claims would “shake the foundation” of athletes trying to stay clean.
German television channel ARD and Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper said they had been leaked a database belonging to athletics governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations, with details of 12,000 blood tests from 5,000 competitors which revealed “extraordinary” levels of doping.
Reedie said at an International Olympic Committee meeting in Kuala Lumpur that the numbers involved and the extent of the use of blood doping had shocked him. “These are wild allegations, wide allegations,” he told reporters.
Russian and Kenyan athletes featured strongly in the program aired just three weeks before the start of the world championships in Beijing.
“WADA is very disturbed by these new allegations that have been raised by ARD which will, once again, shake the foundation of clean athletes worldwide,” Reedie said.
The allegations would be quickly passed to an independent commission looking into allegations aired by ARD in December of widespread doping in Russian athletics.
Russia’s Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko called the new allegations “nonsense” that were part of a power struggle within the IAAF. The Kenyan federation reacted with fury slamming the claims which it said were ‘libellous’.
ARD and the Sunday Times said the data was leaked by a “whistleblower” and that they had asked Australian doping experts Michael Ashenden and Robin Parisotto to examine the results.
The experts said that 800 athletes in disciplines from 800 meters to the marathon registered values considered suspicious or highly suspicious.
They also said:
— At least a third of the medal-winners at world championships and Olympics between 2001 and 2012 had given suspicious tests.
“In one event the entire podium was comprised of athletes, who in my opinion had most probably doped at some point in their career,” Ashenden told the ARD program.
— More than 80 percent of Russia’s medals were won by athletes with suspicious tests, while Kenya had 18 medals won by suspicious athletes.
— The tests showed an increasing use of blood transfusions and hard to detect EPO micro-doses to boost red cell count and performances.
The IAAF said only that it was aware of the media reports and stressed that the data was “obtained without consent.”
But the IAAF faced criticism from within athletics.
European Athletics president Svein Arne Hansen called on the global body “to clarify the situation and step up its already leading efforts to combat the scourge of doping”.
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