DOPING IN ATHLETICS: UK Dopers Would Face Life Funding Ban

UK Sport chief Liz Nicholl has warned any Brits found to be doping will be stripped of funding for life

British athletes face a life ban from receiving funding if they are found to be involved in the latest drugs scandal to rock athletics. UK Sport funds 1,300 British Olympic and Paralympic athletes, but chief executive Liz Nicholl warned the body has a zero tolerance approach to doping.

Press Association report continues:

Nicholl expressed concern at allegations from German broadcaster ARD/WDR after it gained access to a database containing more than 12,000 blood tests from 5,000 athletes. It claimed more than 800 athletes - and a third of all medallists in endurance events at recent Olympics and World Championships - had suspicious blood test results.

Nicholl told Press Association Sport: "My thoughts on this are that no matter how unpalatable the revelations are, the truth has got to be told so that the integrity of the sport is protected.

"We have a zero tolerance of doping. Any athlete who has a case to answer is suspended [from the funding programme] and if they are found guilty of a serious doping offence they are banned from receiving the funding for life."

But the outgoing president of international athletics has defended the organization's record on drug-testing and called the latest doping allegations "a joke".

Lamine Diack, who steps down as IAAF president at the end of August, also questioned whether there would be any redistribution of Olympic medals.

Diack, speaking to the media at the IOC session in Kuala Lumpur, said: "There is a film and a newspaper who are asking questions. We are going to answer them all.

"But it [doesn't mean] just because someone has a suspicious profile once that he was doped. When people say that there are medals to be redistributed from 2001 to 2012, it's just a farce.

"They are playing with the idea of a redistribution of medals. It's possible, if we prove with the new techniques at our disposal that someone doped. Otherwise, it's a joke. Just three weeks before the world championships, there is something behind [this].

"No one has been destabilized, we are stronger than that. Everything that has been done in the fight against doping has been made by IAAF."

Sebastian Coe, who is standing in the election to succeed Diack, has promised to take a hard line on drugs.

He said in his presidential manifesto: "The fight against those who continue to lie and cheat is not over - far from it - and it is crucial that we continue to increase resources in this battle for our sport's integrity and now is the time to dramatically close the gap between a positive test and the relevant sanction."