The Podium: Should athletics reset world records?

UK Athletics’ document “A Manifesto for Clean Athletes” has provoked a tsunami of opinion in the sport.

Among their inflammatory 14-point proposal is the suggestion of wiping all world records and punishing drug cheats with minimum eight-year bans.

UKA chairman Ed Warner mused that the casual observer would look at the majority of current records and despondently think "they were drug assisted".

“I think you should turn up to an athletics meeting and believe those records in the books are there to be broken and are fair,” Warner told the Guardian.

“And at the moment, for a huge percentage of the 47 gold medal events at an Olympics or world championships, you are probably going to look at them and say: ‘I bet they were drugs-assisted.’ And that’s a crying shame.”

Athletics plunged further into the abyss in 2015 – the lowest point seeing Russia suspended from international competition for “state-sponsored doping”.

Doubts plague some of the biggest records. For example, the women’s shorter track records (100m, 200m, 400m and 800m) have not been remotely challenged by the current crop of athletes. All four records are held by athletes who long protested their innocence.

“Who am I to say whether Florence Griffiths-Joyner was drug-fuelled or not?” Warner continued to the Guardian.

“She never failed a test ... But female sprinters can’t get within a quarter of a second of her 100m and 200m records in 1988, so where is the female Usain Bolt coming from?"

It makes uncomfortable reading – and leaves athletes with a seemingly impossible task of breaking world records. Time to start again…

…except this is not the "clean era" UK Athletics would have us believe. Far from it.

Right now, Dick Pound is rehearsing his grave face in the mirror ahead of the sequel to WADA’s independent commission’s findings into the IAAF and Russia. Expect further dismay on Thursday.

Also, the idea that every athlete is suddenly clean in these uncertain times is laughable. Even in three years’ time (when such a proposal could likely take effect), not all athletes will be: a) clean, and b) provably clean. It’s absurd.

Cheating will persist. It always has; it always will. Unless testing catches up with evading, there’s no point ushering a false dawn. You’ll only revisit this debate in 10 or 20 years’ time.

And even if the results are annulled, how useful would it really be?

While the on-screen graphics might flash ‘WR’, everyone will just turn to the internet to see if it’s really the best mark in history. Commentators will compare to the not-so-forgotten age. The current marks would still be a barometer to some. Then you have the issue of tainting all athletes, among them clean competitors.

It’s a commendable idea in theory but it would face huge resistance and we are a long, long way away from declaring athletics as a clean sport.

In short, probably not.

Ultimately, it serves as rhetoric – aimed at protecting the 2017 World Championships in London. UK Athletics have been smart. Deep down, they probably realise their most controversial proposals will remain ideas.

But just as we’re sometimes guilty of posting a provocative headline to drum up interest in something mediocre, they have promoted their manifesto with a hugely controversial suggestion to get a debate flowing. And it’s worked a treat.

• WADA should maintain a public global register of all drugs tests so that the times and places of tests undertaken by all athletes are open to scrutiny.

• If the above is not introduced swiftly by WADA, UK Sport should mandate all lottery-funded athletes in Great Britain to have their tests available on a public register maintained by UKAD. Non lottery-funded athletes in the UK should be invited to join. the register.

• A call to WADA and UKAD to investigate the implications of publishing a register of missed tests. Also to review the efficacy of the current "three strikes" system with a view to lengthening the measurement period to 18 months or two years.

• The pool of athletes subject to testing, both in the UK and worldwide, should be deepened. Also, there should be an increase in out-of-competition testing for all athletes.

• WADA should review and strengthen the process around the granting of Therapeutic Use Exemptions to athletes.

• The IAAF should insist that all athletes competing in world championships have a valid blood/biological passport and have been subject to a predetermined number of in-competition and out-of-competition tests in the twelve months preceding the competition. This should be in place for at least the top 10 leading athletics nations by the 2017 World Championships. Once established this blood/biological passport should become an athlete prerequisite for all major international competitions.

• The IAAF should make it the responsibility of member federations to reimburse any lost prize monies to affected athletes resulting from a ban and annulment of results. If a member federation does not honour this responsibility, it can be suspended from participating in major championships.

• A call to the IAAF to investigate the implications of drawing a line under all pre-existing sport records – for example, by adjusting event rules – and commencing a new set of records based on performances in the new Clean Athletics era.

• A call to all companies who engage in sports sponsorship not to support any athlete found guilty of a serious doping offence as a matter of principle in support of Clean Athletics. In addition we call for the IAAF to ring-fence a percentage of each of its commercial sponsorships to be used toward the funding and support of Clean Athletics.

• Governments should commit to ensuring that their national anti-doping agencies are truly independent, ideally by handing over their management directly to WADA.

• Bans should be extended to a minimum of eight years for serious doping offences to ensure that cheating athletes miss two Olympic or Paralympic cycles. Lifetime bans should also be applied in appropriate cases.

• The supply or procurement of performance enhancing drugs should be criminalised and those in positions of authority who are found to be involved in such practices should be banned for life from any involvement in sport.

• Anti-doping agencies should be renamed Clean Sport, or their equivalent in local language – for example Clean Sport UK – to emphasise the ultimate purpose of their activities.

• Finally, UK Athletics commits to exploring how to best legally implement a rule that will result in athletes who commit a serious anti-doping violation receiving a lifetime ban from representing Great Britain.