Longer suspensions aimed at making Olympics cleaner

Athletics will return to four-year bans for first-time dopers in 2015, putting an end to the practice of Olympic athletes suspended for doping being allowed to compete in the following Games.

Having been forced to cut its ban from four to two years in 1997 to bring it in line with other leading sports and get worldwide governments on board, the International Association of Athletics Federations has been under increasing pressure to restore the stiffer penalty in the wake of a slew of high-profile doping cases.

On Thursday, two days before the start of the world championships in Moscow, it announced there would be a return to four-year bans.

"The new WADA (world anti-doping agency) Code, which will come into force on Jan 1, 2015, will reflect our firm commitment to have tougher penalties and the IAAF will return to four-year sanctions for serious doping offences," the IAAF said in a statement following the second day of its congress.

"The IAAF has an ethical obligation to the overwhelming majority of athletes and officials who believe in clean sport.

"As a leader in this fight the IAAF has built and delivers a program that is well resourced, far reaching, sophisticated and increasingly able to detect and remove from the sport those who breach our anti-doping rules."

Athletics has recently been rocked by a string of doping cases, ranging from high-profile athletes such as American Tyson Gay and the Jamaican trio of Asafa Powell, Veronica Campbell-Brown and Sherone Simpson to multiple positive tests in Turkey.

Some of the Turkish athletes were as young as 17 and the controversies have led to calls for federations to be punished for failing to control the situation.

IAAF officials have continued to stress that they lead the way in the fight against doping and that the mass of positive tests are merely evidence of its efficiency.

"The IAAF's collection of the blood samples of nearly 2000 athletes in Daegu (at the 2011 world championships), as part of our commitment to the Athlete Biological Passport, was an historic achievement across all sports, and continues in Moscow," said officials, who added that the testing program in Moscow will be the most comprehensive in the event's 30-year history.

Earlier on Thursday, the Turkish National Olympic Committee issued a statement saying the country was committed to the fight against doping, despite more than 40 athletes being suspended in recent weeks.

On Wednesday, Paula Radcliffe, Britain's marathon world record holder and a member of the IAAF athletes' council, said some Turkish coaches were guilty of child abuse for giving teenage athletes illegal substances.

(China Daily 08/10/2013 page15)