British athlete avoided drug inquiry, German documentary claims
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ByEurosport
Updated 09/12/2014 at 18:31 GMT
A leading British athlete escaped a doping inquiry despite abnormal blood test results, German broadcaster ARD have claimed in fresh allegations that further damage the sport.
An Olympic flag flies next to the British union flag in central London
Image credit: Reuters
The documentary claims that an anonymous member of the IAAF’s medical commission had a list of 150 “highly suspicious” blood samples that were not followed up.
Many of the samples, collected between 2006 and 2008, implicate Russian athletes, with other samples coming from Kenya, Germany, Spain, Morocco and at least one from Britain.
According to the BBC: "The British athlete cannot be named for legal reasons and both British Athletics and UK Anti-Doping have declined to comment."
Athletics is already reeling after Russia was accused of running an “East-German-style” doping programme for athletics by another German documentary last week.
TV network MDR claimed that “99 per cent” of the Russian Olympic team used doping, suggesting that positive tests had been covered up. The Russian Athletics Federation has dismissed both sets of assertions as “lies”.
The IAAF, the sport's world governing body, issued another lengthy statement in response to the claims of widespread doping and cover-ups.
"A copy of the video and English transcript of the documentary will be sent directly to independent IAAF Ethics Commission who are already investigating this matter," they said on Tuesday.
The statement also addressed specific allegations relating to the period 2006-2009.
"Any information that shows a breach of our anti-doping rules will be added to the separate investigation that has been opened following part one of the documentary," it said.
The chaos comes at a time when Lord Sebastian Coe, who is running for the IAAF presidency, is campaigning to overhaul the drug testing procedures and make the process independent.
"There is a disproportionate amount of reputational damage being caused by a small number of countries," he said. "This is not endemic across the world of athletics.
"Independent testing and sanctioning would take some of the pressure off member federations and cut through any potential for conflict.
"We have to get this right. This is the time to really push for a wholly independent arm to our testing procedures."
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