adminPARIS. — Athletics global governing body is to launch a doping crackdown on elite marathon runners after scandals involving top Kenyan and Russian stars. This announcement came before Russian Athletics Federation chief Valentin Balakhnichev confirmed his resignation from the post yesterday following a string of doping scandals.
The 65-year-old Balakhnichev, who has presided over athletics in the country since 1991, announced earlier this month that he would step down and confirmed his resignation at the federation’s executive board meeting.
“I decided to resign,” Balakhnichev said. “I failed to confront in full the rise of doping problems in Russia. And I understand that as the (athletics) federation president I’m personally responsible for it. That was the reason of my decision.
“I hand the federation into my followers’ hands in good condition, free of debts. Currently we have only one serious problem – it’s the doping problem.”
Balakhnichev has named his deputy Vadim Zelichenok as the athletics federation’s acting supremo until elections are held to decide who his permanent successor will be. Last month Olympic steeplechase champion Yulia Zaripova and three Olympic champions in race walking – Sergei Kirdyapkin, Olga Kaniskina and Valery Borchin – were all banned by the country’s Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) for having abnormal indexes of haematological profiles in their biological passports.
Russian heptathlete Tatiana Chernova, a bronze medallist at the London Olympics, and the 2011 world champion in the 50km walk, Sergei Bakulin, were also banned along with Vladimir Kanaikin, who was banned for life for a repeated doping offence after serving a two-year ban from 2008 to 10.
Meanwhile, organisers of the top races in London, New York, Boston, Chicago, Tokyo and Berlin have agreed to finance extra testing of top runners by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). The finance from World Marathon Majors (WMM) means that the top 150 runners will face tougher testing after races and out of competition.
Failed tests by Russia’s Liliya Shobukhova, who was the second fastest women in history, and Kenya’s Rita Jeptoo, three time winner of the Boston marathon, sullied the name of one of the original Olympic disciplines.
Jeptoo – who in the past two years has achieved the Chicago/Boston double – was one of 35 Kenyan athletes suspended over the past two years for taking banned drugs. The WMM “offered their contribution to our programme,” said Thomas Capdevielle, the IAAF’s anti-doping manager, announcing the clampdown.
He said it “basically means systematic ABP (athletes biological passport) testing at the races on all the elite field, as we have been doing for the past two years, but also urine tests out of competition.”
Drug investigators would have “more resources to follow a group of 100-250 elite marathon runners in the world,” Capdevielle added. — AFP.
Online Reporter