Monaco resident Paula Radcliffe has reacted with dismay and disbelief to news that athletics world and European records set before 2005 are very likely to be stripped from the record books.
Radcliffe set the world marathon record in 2003, said that the move “unfairly damages the reputations of many innocent athletes”. The plan has been strongly backed by Seb Coe, president of the Monaco-based International Association of Athletics Federations. The new rules will not only require anyone who sets a world record to have been tested numerous times in the months previously, but also to make a sample taken after their record performance available for retesting. These measures apply retroactively.
The IAAF has stored samples only since 2005 and the world athletics ruling body is expected to ratify the rules change in July. The move has come as the IAAF struggles with an epidemic of drug use by Russian athletes over the last few years and extensive evidence of corruption at the highest levels within the IAAF itself.
Pierce O’Callaghan, leader of the European Athletics project team, which came up with the recommendations, said: “We are not casting doubt on the previous records at all, just saying the criteria have changed.”
Ms Radcliffe said: “I fully understand the desire and need to restore credibility to our sport but don’t feel that this achieves that. It is yet one more way that clean athletes are made to suffer for the actions of cheats.” She wrote on Twitter: “I am hurt and do feel this damages my reputation and dignity. It is a heavy-handed way to wipe out some really suspicious records in a cowardly way by simply sweeping all aside instead of having the guts to take the legal plunge and wipe any record that would be found in a court of law to have been illegally assisted. It is confusing to the public at a time when athletics is already struggling to market itself.”