ATHLETICS-DOPING/BACH IOC boss Bach says IAAF fighting hard to combat doping

Record ID: 143131

  • Title: ATHLETICS-DOPING/BACH IOC boss Bach says IAAF fighting hard to combat doping
  • Date: 21st August 2015
  • Summary: NEWS CONFERENCE IN PROGRESS
  • Embargoed: 5th September 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: China
  • Country: China
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA2J3RDDINIULJS8YTM8KUB6HXO
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: IOC President Thomas Bach is confident the IAAF can combat doping in athletics following a wave of allegations against the sport.
    The governing body has been in crisis since data from thousands of blood samples was leaked to two media organisations earlier this month.
    Three weeks of further damaging stories has overshadowed the run-up to the biennial world championships, which open in Beijing with the men's marathon on Saturday morning.
    So much so that the IAAF asked the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) to form an independent commission to investigate the allegations by German broadcaster ARD and British newspaper The Sunday Times that the IAAF had failed to probe hundreds of "suspicious" tests between 2001 and 2012.
    On Friday, ahead of the World Championships, The IAAF Council and the Executive Commission of the International Olympic Committee held a joint meeting in Beijing, followed by a news conference.
    "We have always been together in this fight and in this effort to protect the clean athlete, this is why I am not only confident, I am absolutely sure that the IOC and IAAF with President Seb Coe will work very, very closely together in a zero policy against doping," Bach told reporters.
    Meanwhile Craig Reedie, the head of WADA, believes that ultimately cold, hard science will bring an end the doping firestorm.
    "I think the World Anti-Doping Agency has been pretty clear in its views that the allegations were based on data that was questionable from a scientific and a legal point of view," Reedie told Reuters TV.
    He said the scientists and experts have already started working in Monaco.
    Reedie welcomed the election of Seb Coe to the IAAF presidency earlier this week, saying his fellow Briton was a "convinced anti-doper" who would be a powerful ally in the battle against the use of banned substances in sport.
    He also welcomed Coe's pledge for an independent anti-doping agency for athletics, saying it would not conflict with WADA's work and suggesting the sport might sensibly follow the lead of cycling's governing body, the UCI.
    "It won't be conflicting in any way because whatever the IAAF do will come under the overall heading of the World Anti Doping Code and WADA regulations," he said. "I mean I think the best comparable example is that of the UCI, they separated their sort of promotion and development area which is about international federation supposed to do for sport from its sanctioning operation."
    Bach earlier said Coe's plans were "quite interesting" and would be discussed at an Olympic summit in October.
    Reedie was also keen to disassociate himself from comments attributed to him in an interview last weekend, where he was reported to be in favour of a blanket ban on countries whose athletes regularly dope, and he also played down calls to ban dopers for life.
    Reedie said this simply was not a viable option.
    "If we introduced life bans, it is our legal advice that that would not be regarded as proportionate. If we did it ban somebody from life, we would immediately be in court, we'd lose the case and that does not make any sense at all," he said.
    And Reedie also denied there is complacency in those bodies charged with fighting doping, putting great faith in WADA's independent commission - as well as Saturday's start of the championships - to bring an end to the crisis in athletics.
    "I don't blame media for doing what they do, we have to react to it, and I think we have reacted to it pretty sensibly, particularly in the creation of an independent commission to look at it," he said.
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