Hit the dopers harder, says 2014’s silver star

LYNSEY SHARP would love to see athletics following sports like tennis and getting tougher on drugs cheats.

Earlier this month, American tennis player Wayne Odesnik received a 15-year ban from the sport, effectively ending the 29-year-old’s career, after he was found guilty of a second doping violation.

Sharp has first-hand experience of just how maddening an experience coming up against a drug cheat can be.

Her European Championships silver medal in the 800metres in 2012 was upgraded to gold when the woman who won that day, Russia’s Yelena Arzhakova, was subsequently banned for two years for a doping offence.

The fact she was caught is the positive aspect of that story but then there are the likes of American sprinter Justin Gatlin — who has served two bans for doping offences but is now training his sights on dethroning Usain Bolt. And the case of Ukrainian Nataliya Lupu, who served a nine-month doping ban and won bronze at the European Indoor championships this month.

Whilst conceding that progress is being made, Sharp believes athletics is still not sending out the right message.

‘You should have only one ban,’ she insisted. ‘There are still cases where I think we could be a lot stricter.

‘Giving someone a 15-year ban is a very strong message, which is what I think we need to follow.

‘And especially when there are problems with countries, like Russia for example. How many Russian athletes are serving bans? I don’t think handing out two-year bans, or less than that, is going to do anything. It’s a much bigger issue than that but it’s definitely getting better.

‘Even last year’s outdoors or this year’s indoors — there were no Russian women in the 1,500m and the ones in the 800m, two of them I hadn’t heard of, so it’s gone very quiet.’

However, she added: ‘Then there was Lupu, who finished third in the 800m. She served a nine-month ban from March 2014 to January 2015 and then came out and medalled two months later. So a nine-month ban — it’s nothing.

‘When I watched the indoors, almost every race there was someone who they introduced as just coming back from a ban.

‘It is the minority but it is getting to the point where in almost every single field, there is someone who has a past.’