The World Anti-Doping Agency says it is “very alarmed” by new accusations of mass doping that has plunged athletics into a deep crisis.
WADA president Craig Reedie on Sunday 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 (IAAF) with details of 12,000 blood tests from 5000 competitors, which revealed “extraordinary” levels of doping.
Reedie said at an International Olympic Committee (IOC) meeting 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.
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 800m to the marathon registered values considered suspicious or highly suspicious.
Rob Gremio
Roar Pro
Fascinating. It is not unreasonable to expect this level of doping in endurance sports, however, particularly given the mess that cycling has been dealing with. On the SBS Cycling Central website, there is an article suggesting that Athletics is now, with these revelations, where cycling was during the Lance Armstrong era. I would suggest that this is not an unreasonable conclusion to draw. Even the initial response from the IAAF has been the same as the UCI's response - deny, deny, deny. Hopefully they sort this out and actually give some teeth to the biological passport system they have borrowed from cycling, in order to catch systematic doping. It's not a perfect system, but it certainly helps.