IMPROVED anti-doping techniques led the International Association of Athletics Federations yesterday to announce that 32 adverse findings from 28 athletes have been discovered in retested samples from the 2005 and 2007 World Championships in Helsinki and Osaka respectively.
The athletes have been provisionally suspended. The process has been ongoing for years, and predates recent accusations by German TV and a UK newspaper. It is believed no British athletes are involved.
The latest 28 are in addition to nine athletes already sanctioned from earlier re-testing. Some of the 28 have already been sanctioned, but with legal process on-going, they can't be named.
The IAAF says the majority are retired. Significant figures may be involved, because the world body say they "will correct the record books and re-allocate medals as necessary".
Samples have been stored at the Swiss anti-doping laboratory in Lausanne as part of a 10-year partnership programme, and takes advantage of the increased statute of limitations available under the 2015 World Anti-Doping Code.
The IAAF pioneered systematic storage of samples for later re-analysis, and are retaining out-of-competition samples for further re-testing.
However, the Olympic discus champion, Robert Harting, led a group of German athletes who claim the IAAF cannot be trusted any more.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here