Jessica Ennis-Hill would have Olympic doubts over Russians

Russia were banned from the sport in November following the first part of a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) report that found a "deeply rooted culture of cheating" in track and field in the country.

The nation's athletes will only be allowed to compete at the Rio Olympics if the ban imposed by the governing IAAF is lifted in time for the August 5-21 Games.

"I hope if it does get to that stage that there are Russian athletes competing at the Olympics, that really drastic measures have been put in place to make sure nothing like this happens again," Briton Ennis-Hill told the BBC.

"I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't look at Russian athletes and think 'is everything 100 per cent OK?'."

[THE PODIUM: Should Russia be allowed to compete at Rio 2016?]

Ennis-Hill was pipped to gold at the 2011 IAAF World Championships in Daegu by Russia's Tatyana Chernova, who later had two years of results annulled after a prohibited anabolic steroid was found in a 2009 sample. Perhaps conveniently, the wiped results fell short of the event in South Korea by 16 days and the result has stood since.

Ennis-Hill, who clinched gold in front of a fervent home crowd at London 2012 and claimed a second world title in Beijing last year, said she expected further disclosures in the doping scandal that has rocked the sport.

"As an athlete competing at this time, it's awful to see but at the same time you have to think that our sport has to go through this really terrible time," she added.

"It has to go to the very bottom, to the darkest place for it to then rise and come out the other side."

Ennis-Hill is right to be concerned. Her spotlight moment was snatched by a now-convicted drug cheat in 2011; why wouldn’t she fear a repeat?

After the wave of allegations and subsequent ban, there is absolutely no need to have Russian athletes in Rio. What’s the point? Decent performances will only be written off anyway by a wounded sport. The ban was enacted to bring about a positive revolution – if Russia return before the Olympics, it would simply beg the question: ‘what's changed?’