WADA will keep Paula under the microscope
PAULA RADCLIFFE and athletics’ governing body, the IAAF, will have to wait until next year to discover whether the World Anti-Doping Agency’s independent commission agree with their assessment that she has been cleared of doping.
The IAAF, mired by an ongoing criminal corruption investigation and facing allegations they failed to follow up suspected doping cases, effectively cleared themselves of blame in a 38-page report.
They also concluded there was no doping case to answer for Radcliffe, insisting that she is prepared to do anything to remove the stain of drugs from her name, including putting up £1million for an MRI brain scan lie detector test.
But Dick Pound, the former WADA president and the commission’s lead figure, says it is too early to say what the independent conclusions on the matter will be.
The commission’s first report was a huge blow for the IAAF and led to Russia being suspended from athletics and criminal charges against senior IAAF officials, including Lamine Diack, predecessor of new president Lord Coe.
The commission’s second report will be broken into two sections, to be published in January and Pound told The MoS: ‘We will report on the implication of the IAAF in potentially criminal acts and the other part will be whether it was sufficiently diligent in following up suspicious test results. Whether the IAAF should have been sanctioning people on the basis of these ‘off scores’ (blood values) that were recorded.’
Lord Coe and personnel from the IAAF’s anti-doping department will be questioned by a House of Commons select committee on Wednesday on allegations that the IAAF did not act on the results of elevated blood levels in some athletes.
The IAAF’s 38-page report, which was released on Friday, was prepared for the select committee and it attempts to rebut serious allegations of negligence made in the summer by anti-doping experts Michael Ashenden and Robin Parisotto.
The report is hugely critical of Ashenden and Parisotto’s analysis of the IAAF’s approach and both men defended themselves and hit back yesterday.
‘The irony of a disgraced federation casting aspersions is not lost on me,’ said Ashenden. ‘The Independent Commission has identified corruption and bribery practices at the highest levels of international athletics, currently under investigation by Interpol.
‘The Independent Commission said that the IAAF was inexplicably lax in following up suspicious blood profiles. I witnessed symptoms of that disgraceful behaviour when I inspected a database drenched with suspect blood profiles. And I made comment accordingly.’
‘The IAAF pleads that it could not have done more. But the blood values were so extreme that they should have tried to do something — anything. The IAAF were legally timid when they should have been morally strong.’