- Title: ATHLETICS-WORLD/HARTING Discus champion Harting to skip world championships
- Date: 11th August 2015
- Summary: KIENBAUM, GERMANY (AUGUST 11, 2015) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) HARTING SAYING: "For us in Germany, we have the idea of the anti-doping front. A good reason to do it that way is that every country can take out some money to raise their own system, to check their athletes. The good thing is that the political way of coming into the country (for this anti-doping front) would be using a similar status to that ambassadors have, so they would only have to show their ID at the border to get into the country, check the athletes, check the hearings and leave. So there would be no place for corruption because the ring of countries would be independent"
- Embargoed: 26th August 2015 13:00
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- Topics: General
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- Story Text: World discus champion Robert Harting of Germany will not defend his title at this month's Beijing championships as he does not want to risk his participation in next year's Rio Olympics after struggling to recover from a ligament injury.
Harting, who has won three consecutive world titles and the 2012 Olympic gold medal in London, said competing in Beijing would be too risky for him as he is still not 100 percent fit after tearing a cruciate ligament last September.
"Unfortunately I can't take part. The problem is that my leg doesn't go fast enough automatically. My knee is great, but the reaction in the foot is not great yet. An injury to the ligament takes at least a year to heal and I am only on my 10th month. Those last one or two months are key. The decision has to be taken in a professional way. In a world championship I would perhaps take too many risks and try to force myself to do something that my leg just can't do yet," he told reporters at a training session in Kienbaum on Tuesday (August 11).
Harting recently posted a video in which he and other athletes criticise the global athletics governing body, the IAAF, for its handling of a massive blood test leak with results from 2001-2012.
Reports supplied by a whistleblower disgusted by the extent of apparent doping, showed that endurance runners could have been winning a third of Olympic and world championship medals illegally.
Harting said that the scandal endangered the views of future athletes and suggested an international anti-doping front to fight the problem.
"The problem is, in the future, how can we save the sport, how can we safe the meaning of it to children? Because this is the future. And you can't be a member of the council and think about money all the time if you don't have athletes for the future, because they are (the basis) to your existence. And that is why we have to separate ourselves from all this behavior and connect with all athletes over the world to send a big message from a big team, so that IAAF lose their own athletes. We don't trust them anymore and they have to try and win us back," he said.
"For us in Germany, we have the idea of the anti-doping front. A good reason to do it that way is that every country can take out some money to raise their own system, to check their athletes. The good thing is that the political way of coming into the country (for this anti-doping front) would be using a similar status to that ambassadors have, so they would only have to show their ID at the border to get into the country, check the athletes, check the hearings and leave. So there would be no place for corruption because the ring of countries would be independent," he added.
The Sunday Times and ARD said earlier this month that they were given access to the results of over 12,000 tests of more than 5,000 athletes taken between 2001 and 2012.
Australian doping expert Robin Parisotto and another scientist, Michael Ashendon, two experts who have been asked to analyse the results, concluded that more than 800 athletes had recorded one or more "abnormal" results, defined as a result that had less than one chance in 100 of being natural.
Such athletes accounted for 146 medals at top events, including 55 golds, the Sunday Times said. Russia accounted for by far the most, with 415 abnormal tests, followed distantly by Ukraine, Morocco, Spain, Kenya, Turkey and others. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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