‘We need funds for drug fight’

PAULA RADCLIFFE conceded last night that the lack of funding for the anti-doping fight means Laura Muir can’t be 100 per cent confident that she has a level playing field in her attempts to bring back Olympic 1500m gold from Tokyo.

The former marathon world record holder, who recently agreed to coach a former Nike Oregon project runner in the form of America’s Jordan Hasay, feels greater financial backing is still required in athletics to correct the anomalies in testing procedure which exist between nations.

“Sadly, we’re not there yet,” said Radcliffe, speaking candidly after the FPSG awards at the Hilton Hotel in Glasgow. “There’s so many improvements that need to be made.

“I think athletics is leading the way ahead of other sports with the Athletics Integrity Unit, and what they’re trying to put into place. But it needs a much bigger injection of funding into that to do a better job and it needs to be fairer across the board.

“We can have a situation where the difference between the UK and the US is huge,” she added.

“When we see what Christian Coleman said, then Jenny Simpson saying that she can phone a tester and the tester can meet them halfway. That can’t happen. That wouldn’t happen here. Before we even start talking about what’s happening in Morocco, in Kenya and Ethiopia – that has to be solved.

“But I think that this maybe this pinprick test is something really good coming forward. Because if they can do that from a fingertip, and there’s no excuse not to be able to go anywhere and get them tested immediately.

“It’s getting better all the time. But I think we’ve got to improve our testing a lot and just work more and more as well on the education. When you see youngsters really coming into the sport for the right reasons and understanding the reasons why they want to see genuinely how good they can be, then you’re going to have a stronger moral basis.”