UK Athletics wants all world records to be reset due to the sport’s doping crisis and has announced it will seek to bring in a lifetime ban for any athlete guilty of a serious drugs violation.
The governing body for British athletics has published “A Manifesto for Clean Athletics”, which calls for hard-hitting measures to be brought in to clean up the sport.
It comes after the doping scandal that has seen Russia banned from international athletics, with allegations that former officials from the sport’s world governing body, the IAAF, also took money to cover up positive tests from Turkish and Moroccan athletes.
Kenya, one of the most high-profile countries in distance running, is also at the centre of doping-related allegations.
UK Athletics chairman, Ed Warner, said: “The integrity of athletics was challenged as never before in 2015.
“Clean athletes and sports fans the world over have been let down. Trust in the sport is at its lowest point for decades.
“Greater transparency, tougher sanctions, longer bans – and even resetting the clock on world records for a new era – we should be open to do whatever it takes to restore credibility in the sport.”
Dick Pound, the chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s independent commission, is to announce the second part of the findings of his investigation into the IAAF and Russia on Thursday at a news conference in Munich.
UK Athletics has made 14 proposals, including the IAAF bringing in a new set of world records based on performances in the new “Clean Athletics” era.
It is also seeking “to enforce a lifetime ban against representing Great Britain for any athlete guilty of a serious anti-doping violation” and doubling the length of bans worldwide for serious offences from four years to eight years.
Warner added: “UKA believes the time has come for radical reform if we are to help restore trust in the sport. Athletics needs to act very differently if we are to move on from the crisis facing the sport.
“We are publishing today a ‘Manifesto for Clean Athletics’. We cannot will the ends – a clean sport that people can trust – if we are not prepared to be bold and put in place the means to get there.”
Warner said UK Athletics has also announced the recommendations of its review into the Oregon Project run by Mo Farah’s coach Alberto Salazar which was commissioned following allegations by the BBC’s Panorama programme that the coach had violated anti-doping rules.
The United States Anti-Doping Agency had asked UKA not to publish its findings while it continue its investigations into Salazar, but Warner said: “We are also publishing the recommendations from our review into Oregon last summer.
“We had said we would wait until the USADA report before publishing but the need for transparency overrides our previously stated position.”
UK Athletics is the only one among the Diamond League organisers to have a policy of not inviting athletes who have previously been found guilty of a serious anti-doping violation.
Following the independent review of its connections with the Oregon Project, UK Athletics has announced it will retain the Performance Oversight Committee as an independent watchdog of its practices.
Recommendations also include UK Athletics undertaking a process of due diligence whenever an athlete with British funding wishes to move to a foreign coach, or when UK Athletics wants to have a working relationship with a coach or consultant.
Athletes in receipt of support from UK Athletics should also be required to sign an agreement which outlines “moral and ethical” obligations.
The IAAF said it welcomed UK Athletics’ contribution and would review its ideas.
An IAAF statement said: “We welcome this framework from UKA and look forward to engaging in their process for moving it forward. The IAAF is currently driving some of these changes forward such as increasing out of competition testing and devoting commercial revenue to anti-doping as outlined earlier this year.
“The IAAF registered testing pool will double, as will its testing budget, which represents over 50% of participants in the IAAF WC (World Championship) and all potential medal winners.
“Each of these athletes tested will automatically have an ABP (Athlete Biological Passport) profile created. We look forward to reviewing the recommendations in full over the coming days.”
Trending
- Traditional ruler shot dead inside palace
- Primate Ayodele to Yoruba Nation agitators: You can’t break Nigeria
- Police intercept bags of Indian Hemp at Lagos jetty
- Enugu, families to give Ibu, Junior Pope befitting burial
- Police arrest suspects for attempting to disrupt inauguration of commissioners
- Police rescue three children locked up by grandmother + Photo
- Police foil attack in Katsina, neutralise suspected bandit
- US vetoes Palestine’s request for full UN membership