IAAF is shielding dope cheats, claims report

London: The world athletics governing body IAAF blocked the publication of a report that showed as many as a third of the world’s top athletes admitted using banned performance-enhancing techniques, the Sunday Times reported.

 

The authors of the report told the British newspaper that the governing body of world athletics blocked publication of the study which was carried out four years ago.

 

However, the IAAF responded by saying there was nothing new about these revelations.

 

“The IAAF’s delaying publication for so long without good reason is a serious encroachment on the freedom of publication,” the University of Tuebingen in Germany, which carried out the research, said in a statement according to the paper.

 

Researchers from the university were given access to elite athletes at the 2011 world championships in Daegu, South Korea, and concluded in their research that between 29 and 34 per cent of the 1,800 competitors at the championships had violated anti-doping rules in the previous 12 months.

 

The IAAF responded in turn by issuing a statement denying it had suppressed publication of the document.