Johnson urges Coe to restore athletics’ image
US sprinting legend says sport faces ‘a critical moment’ in wake of doping scandals
By Chief Sports Writer, Abu Dhabi
One of the greatest athletes of all time, Michael Johnson, has urged the world athletics supremo Sebastian Coe to “lead the way in restoring the credibility of the sport”.
Johnson, who won four Olympic titles and eight world championship gold medals between 1991 and 2000, said the sport faced “a critical moment” after being engulfed by a series of doping scandals.
After a WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) report last month uncovered state-sponsored doping programmes in Russia, other countries have been implicated in wrongdoing.
The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) suspended three senior officials from Kenya, which is renowned for its distance runners, this week over corruption allegations and “the potential subversion of the anti-doping control process”.
On Wednesday, the Italian Olympic Committee requested two-year doping bans for 26 of its athletes, including Fabrizio Donato, the triple-jump bronze medallist at London 2012.
Major challenge
Speaking ahead of the Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens yesterday, Johnson outlined the scale of the challenge facing athletics’ governing body, the IAAF, and its president Coe to address such damaging revelations.
“This is a critical moment for the sport of athletics,” said the former 200-metre and 400-metre runner, at a press conference at the Sofitel Hotel in Downtown Dubai to celebrate rugby sevens’ maiden inclusion in next year’s Olympic Games in Rio.
“It [athletics] has led the way in the last 20 years or so in its zero-tolerance policy towards anti-doping. The issue is, though, when you move from the conversation being less about who may or may not be doping to whether the organisation entrusted with keeping the sport clean and policing the sport, whether or not they are complicit in covering up tests and protecting athletes and there’s corruption and bribery allegations, that’s a different ball game. “Seb has his work cut out to tackle doping issues and will have to lead by example to restore the credibility of athletics.”
On Wednesday, Coe underwent intense questioning from a British parliamentary committee in Britain, which accused him of a “lack of curiosity” and “wilful blindness” as a vice-president for eight years to his predecessor Lamine Diack. Diack was arrested last month and is under investigation for corruption and bribery allegations, which shocked and angered Coe as he had considered the Senegalese “a spiritual leader”.
Coe also denied that the IAAF was institutionally corrupt, insisting that allegations related to only a “handful” of employees.
Johnson said: “The credibility of athletics has to be restored with fans and athletes. That has to be the number one priority.”