Faster drug test soon, says Sebastian Coe

New Delhi: Pushing forward his agenda to make drug testing quicker and through a more independent process, recently-elected International Association of Athletics Federations president Sebastian Coe said it was needed to protect clean athletes from unfair allegation and rumour.

Lord Coe, who is partly of Indian descent — his grandfather was from Punjab and his mother was born in Delhi — said he wanted to clear the IAAF reputation after dope allegations swam-ped the body ahead of the Beijing world championships earlier this year.

“We are going to introduce more independence in our testing systems,” Coe, told reporters on Monday. “Technically, dope testing is a complicated area but we are looking to introduce faster systems since at the moment the time between testing and sanctions is pretty long,” the two-time Olympic 1500m champion added.

Coe said the IAAF was attempting to introduce blood passports and other anti-doping measure. “One of our responsibilities is to protect clean athletes and not just remove those who cheat. Even when I made eight world records, there was the assumption that it’s not due to my ability,” Coe added.